


Saved By Grace

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:10:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stefan leaves Mystic Falls to run around with Klaus while Damon and Elena deal with the fallout from his wolf-bite and their growing feelings for each other. After Elena leaves for college, they begin a relationship that reaches a pinnacle just as Stefan's ready to return home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Genesis (The Beginning)

**Author's Note:**

> Betas: abvj and drkprncss17 (who did the whole thing, bless them); lit_chick08 and littledivinity (who did portions, and cheered me on). Suffice it to say, without them, this would be a much bigger mess than it is. I CANNOT ADEQUATELY THANK THEM IN THIS LIFETIME. Just know they all deserve stars for their crowns in heaven.
> 
> Let me say that I don't normally ask for feedback (*reviews are love* comments generally turn my stomach), but y'all, THIS WAS MY ENTIRE SUMMER. This is what I ate, slept, lived, breathed every day from May to September. It really consumed so much of my life and a little remark on that would be much appreciated. So if you take the time to read it, please take the time to tell me if you liked it or not. Concrit is welcome, since the whole thing is Jossed now with season three anyway.

_'Cause when we're torn apart  
Shattered and scarred  
Love has the grace to save us_  
~from "Saints and Angels" by Sara Evans

  


* * *

 

She turns seventeen while she's in the hospital. Her parents are dead, and her little brother sleeps on a chair in the corner of her room, tears dried on his cheeks.

Her Aunt Jenna shows up, looking shell-shocked, stunned not to have just lost her sister, but to have inherited two teenagers.

Elena Gilbert closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep even as hot tears slip down her face.

 

 

She meets Stefan Salvatore on a Tuesday in September and she thinks his eyes are the prettiest shade of green she's ever seen. He's so nice, but mysterious, walking away from her before she's even finished talking to him.

She falls for him fast, because there's no reason not to. Life is short, things happen, and with no parents, Elena has stopped thinking like a kid. She wants to have fun, but she wants it to be meaningful. With Stefan, things are meaningful. He's intense, and seems older than any of the other seventeen-year-old boys she knows.

When everything starts to unravel—first, he's a vampire, then his brother is a menace to society, then she finds out she looks just like the infamous Katherine—she holds on tighter. Every instinct tells her to let go, but she can't.

There is no reason for this, not until Atlanta. In the space of an unplanned, heartfelt plea for the life of someone she knows has done unforgivable things, she begins to understand something about herself.

Her parents died, but she lived. It had to be for a greater purpose, and every day that passes with the Salvatore brothers in her life seems to prove that.

 

 

His fingers brush against her throat as he says, "I didn't compel you in Atlanta because we were having fun...and I wanted it to be real." Elena's fear that he'll decide that right now he doesn't care if it's real or not floods her and she fights against trembling. She feels the clasp drop against the back of her neck as he pulls his hands away. "I'm trusting you," he says, and his voice quivers over that word—as though to even think of trusting someone is the hardest thing in the world for him. His eyes come up to hers. "Don't make me regret it," he finishes.

He turns away from her and picks the Grimoire back up. Elena decides right then that she won't do anything to break that trust, not tonight. It's too precious when there is no confidence, when there is nothing but strife. When a man who loves has nothing to direct that love to, and only hate and anger and wrath to spill upon the world.

Her fear for Stefan is what first forces her into the tomb, but her fear for Damon is what sends her back. She hears his voice echoing from the depths _(She's not here!)_ and Elena can't comprehend it. The terrifying certainty at the end of all this was supposed to be a vampire who looked just like her, and the reality of Damon leaving Mystic Falls forever with her.

She calls out to him, desperate to get them all to safety before time runs out; there's palpable devastation on his face as his eyes find hers in the filtering darkness. It somehow makes the night before when he'd been so angry to find them digging up the Grimoire without him pale in comparison.

All of her broken promises could never compare with the biggest lie of them all.

 

 

"I love you, so much," Stefan whispers, and the desperation in his voice scares Elena more than any of the frightening things she's seen since they started dating. He holds her too tightly, his grip on her painful, but she doesn't protest.

She's never seen him this vulnerable, and she's not sure what it means.

She learns a few days later when Damon picks Stefan's limp, vervained body up off the bedroom floor and takes him downstairs to the basement. They sit together on the cold, hard cement for a long time, and Damon doesn't say anything, which is strange. She's never known him not to talk incessantly, especially when it would annoy her.

"Will he be alright?" she finally asks, and her voice is hoarse, tired and unused.

"Yes," Damon says with no hesitation, which is in direct contrast with his words when they first shut Stefan in an hour before. _(There's no guarantee this will work.)_ He's as capable of lying to her face as she's been to him. The difference is that he says it to make her feel better. His eyes shift to hers, and she remembers those moments in his arms earlier, when she had forgotten about Stefan. She's not blind, and she's sure that Damon has gotten through more than a hundred and sixty years on the planet because of his beauty—the wildness in his gaze, the danger in his smile—but somehow until today, she'd never been taken in by it herself.

She'd also seen him care about his brother—panic on his face, and a resolve to fix things. It had started with Stefan getting taken by the Tomb Vampires, but Elena faced it head-on today—Damon loves Stefan more than he hates him. Because she's seen the hate too; one couldn't spend any length of time with the two of them and not see it—not _feel_ it.

There had been that moment, there in her history classroom, when he clued her in. Not just about how he feels about his brother, but that he also understands what she feels—how helping Stefan isn't just something she does, but is something she _needs_ to do. She doesn't know why she has to be reminded of Damon's good points—although his constant flaunting of his many flaws probably has something to do with it—but in case she ever forgets, all she really needs to do is remember him that night in the cemetery.

Alone, bereft, _without_.

She doesn't know why, but the one thing she knows without a doubt is that Damon gets her motivation. He gets the driving force that love is.

In a moment of self-realization, she understands that a comparison of her short, little life should be insignificant to him: instead he lets her know that he doesn't think it's any less for her just because she's so much younger—or just because she's only known Stefan for a few months.

He sees them as equals. Not in their ability to save Stefan, obviously, but in the role they both have to play. He had denied her permission to help once they got there, but he'd let her drive his car after they convinced Alaric to go with them. It had been a little thing, but she knows it was his way of letting her have something.

He wrapped his hand around her wrist, pressing his fingers to her pulse, looking directly into her eyes and promising without words to bring his brother back.

The funny part was she believed him.

It confuses her, but it also eases her conscience. Damon had been worth saving, because without his help, Stefan would be dead.

She can't lose Stefan, so that means she can't lose Damon either.

(That's why he sits with her in the basement. He can't lose Stefan either.)

 

 

"We _kissed,_ Elena," he hisses at her as they stand in the hallway of the hospital.

She has no idea what he's talking about and even less patience to try to solve the riddle that is Damon Salvatore. Her uncle (father) almost bled to death in front of her, and while she's not John's biggest fan right now, he's still her family. And now Caroline might die? She can't handle any of this.

Tomb vampires on the loose, Damon saying crazy things like he can't forget it even if she can? What the hell? She's pretty sure she doesn't want to know what he's talking about, but she learns soon enough anyway.

Later, she plays mediator between the brothers, standing in her dining room, watching their eyes sparking, feeling the tension that's always there flare even higher. Katherine has shown herself, and now the monster is real. All the things she's heard and all the things she's concluded on her own without Stefan's input or Damon's expressions of desolation to influence her—okay, fine both of those things are what influenced her opinion the most—but now, she's going to find out, first hand, just what Katherine can do.

Trying to kill John was the first thing, but she doubts very much it's the last.

Hours later, when she finds Damon on the end of her bed, sad, drunk, and incomprehensible, it all begins to unravel. Again.

(Katherine's wake of destruction can't be quantified to only what _she_ does.)

His hands grab at her face, his lips mash over hers, and she tries to reason with him. But deep inside her, she knows she can't speak calmly about something that may not be true and expect Damon to react well to it. It's like it all happens in slow motion, and she should have the right words to prevent it—somehow, someway, but instead she screams "NO!" when he snaps Jeremy's neck.

She runs to her brother's side and feels a rage course through her body that she's never known before.

"I hate him, Stefan," she sobs into Jeremy's hair thirty minutes later when he still hasn't woken up. She doesn't know what the turn-around time is on a magic ring that keeps people from dying permanently, but this has been the longest half hour of her life.

She never thought she could hate anyone, but the feeling fills up every crevice in her body until she's animated with it.

(It's possible that hate is more powerful than love.)

 

 

She holds on to that anger, through every charming remark, through every smirk, through every attempt he makes to cajole her out of it. She is immovable, and Damon Salvatore has no tricks that can change her mind.

She tells herself she goes to offer her blood to Stefan because it's the logical, sensible thing to do when you're in love with a vampire. It's not because Damon stood flatfooted and calmly reasoned with her.

She doesn't do anything because of Damon.

When she breaks up with Stefan a week later—because of Katherine—she's sure she'll get out of the house before she breaks down sobbing, but Damon heads her off at the door, yet again.

He's sorry. It's not the first time he's said it to her, and meant it; but it's the first time he's ever apologized to her for something that can't possibly be his fault.

She drives home from the Boarding House wondering how _that_ expression on _his_ face is almost as painful for her to see as it was on Stefan's.

 

 

At the foot of the stairs, in Stefan's warm embrace, she sees it again, and it chokes her. The emotion steals her breath; the fact that Damon, who would never admit to feeling anything at all, is only inches from her plainly showing how relieved he is that she's alright and how much he wants her in _his_ arms, rather than his brother's, makes Elena close her eyes so she doesn't have to deal with it.

Damon loves her, and she knows it, but as Stefan's arms surround her, anchoring her back into the world she thought she might lose forever, she _can't_ know it. She doesn't want to know it.

(So when he comes to her house that night she doesn't remember it, and it's a small mercy.)

When she sees him at Slater's apartment, the betrayal that she feels is sharp and sudden, and then it fades. Rose doesn't really owe her anything. She'd been remarkably easy to manipulate for someone who claims to be over five hundred years old.

He's angry, but so is she, so Elena doesn't hold back. She tells him just how it is, and he tries to scare her into agreement. She doesn't know why she tries to hit him—it's pointless, even if she could actually make contact. It's not like she can hurt him. She doesn't want to hurt him, anyway, she's trying to save him, and Stefan, and her family, and Bonnie, and everyone. Why doesn't he get that? Why is okay for him to save her, but not the other way around?

He stops trying to coerce her and instead focuses on berating Rose loudly and vehemently for several minutes before dragging a very willing Alice into the bedroom. At first Elena thinks he'll kill the girl, but he comes out moments later having only compelled her, and wanting to leave.

She doesn't doubt it; he's most likely going to throw her over his shoulder and drag her out. She knows he'll do whatever he thinks he has to. But then, suddenly, there they are, Klaus's minions, whomever it is that she can give herself to, to end this once and for all.

And there's nothing Damon can do to stop it. He threatens her again ( _I will_ break _your arm._ ) as his fingers wrap around her wrist, grinding the bones together in a preview action. But he draws up short, letting her go when they both see Elijah. ( _You were dead. I killed you._ )

And inexplicably, she lives another day, and Damon doesn't have to haul her out like a sack of potatoes.

In the stairwell, he looms close beside her as though something will reach out of the shadows and snatch her away. She's still angry, and so is he, but when his arm surrounds her shoulders and guides her towards his car, she lets their bodies brush together. There's comfort there in the light touch.

Not an apology, but something better. Something she won't identify, but finds herself basking in anyway.

 

 

Damon carries Rose's body out to the car, and Elena follows him to help open the trunk lid. He keeps telling her to go home, to leave him alone, but she can't stop _trying_. Stefan's nowhere to be found, and though Damon would never say he needs or wants his brother, she knows he needs something. He needs _someone_ , and she's the only person there.

She's sort of always the only person there. She's the only one who even seems to care about Damon, because Stefan just shuts that part of himself off most of the time. It's easier for him, she understands, but she can't, as much as she's tried. All that anger she channeled into her feelings for him dissipated at some point, and she's not really sure how or why. All she knows now is that she wants to take him in her arms, and that desire is so strong, that even as he climbs into the car and drives away, tossing one more, "Go home!" behind him as he leaves, she can't.

She _won't_. So she goes back inside and waits for him.

 

 

He's quietly furious when he arrives at the cabin. If they weren't sure of Elijah's imminent arrival, Elena might spend more time trying to convince him not to kill John when all this is over, but she sort of doesn't care. When it comes down to it, of the two of them, she picks Damon. John's prejudices don't have anything to do with Damon as a person, it's just about what he is, what he represents, and Elena is not okay with that mentality at all.

(And besides, it's Damon. He's her friend. He's here now, with a plan, and they're going to take care of Elijah, once and for all. She knows it was foolish to think she could strike a deal with the Original and hope everyone would be okay with the outcome.)

"It's not easy to inflict pain upon yourself," Damon says now, looking at her seriously.

"I can do it," she says.

Stefan's fingers wrap around hers, giving her silent encouragement. "I'll stand just inside the door, so I'll be right there to give you my blood. You'll begin healing instantly."

She nods in agreement. "I know," she says.

"And you will kill Elijah," Damon says, handing her the dagger. He sets the bottle of ash on the coffee table at their knees, his fingers strumming along the neck of it. "Right in the heart," he directs as her hand brushes his to grasp the weapon.

"He's here," Stefan says, and Elena's eyes meet Damon's as he pauses to listen to whatever his brother has picked up on. Of course, she can't hear anything odd herself.

"I'll do it," she says, trying to reassure him. "I promise."

He barely tips his chin down in acknowledgment, but his eyes blaze with something that makes her tremble. Then he says, "You're not going to die."

It's simple, it's straightforward, and Elena is forced to accept that fighting the Salvatore brothers for her right to die will be the biggest battle she ever faces.

 

 

She stands with Stefan at the top of a hill, looking out over a beautiful valley. The setting sun kisses the treetops and warms her face, and she breaks down crying because she doesn't want to be a vampire.

She doesn't want to die, but she doesn't want to be a vampire, either; and though she's angry with Damon for what he's done, it's Stefan's gentle reminder _(he did it because he loves you)_ that makes her madder. Love should never be a justification for bad behavior (desperation) and it's so easy to pronounce that Damon doesn't even know what love is.

But as they make their way down the mountain, back to Stefan's car, she remembers things. Small things about Damon that she has gathered and tucked away into her heart, things that no one can really understand about him that were most definitely loving gestures. Compelling Jeremy after Vicki died; getting Ric to help them rescue Stefan; coming to tell her Stefan was drinking human blood; taking Caroline's mom back to the Boarding House to wait for the vervain to leave her system; coming to get Elena in Richmond. What Damon lacks in tenderness, he makes up for in thoroughness.

( _If it comes down to you and the witch again, I will gladly let Bonnie die. I will always choose you._ ) Sometimes he's tender in the harshest ways.

She sees him standing in the morning sun, defiantly spitting, "Go ahead, wish me an eternity of misery. Believe me, you'll get over it."

Maybe she will, because one way or another, she's made up her mind. If she wakes up in transition, she'll complete. Because there are some things about life you don't get to choose, and that's the one lesson she's had over and over. Maybe it's time she finally learns it, once and for all.

 

 

She doesn't lose her human life—just Jenna, and John, and any sense of the phrase _that was worth it_.

Her eyes meet Damon's across the graveyard, and she sees some sort of grim appeasement in the small smile he gives her. It's not until the next day when Stefan confides in her about the wolf bite that she understands that expression fully.

She hears the echo in her heart. _(Take all the time you need.)_ Like it wasn't important enough for him to tell her himself, like he hadn't come to her house that morning begging for something she really already feels, but can't explain sufficiently.

And now she has to face it.

Everything it means, if Damon's not in her life.

 

 

Even as he's biting her, she's not scared—not in the sense that she should be anyway. She's beyond terrified, terrified that he'll die, that somehow she won't get him home to a safe place, that Sheriff Forbes will come out of nowhere and stake him.

All Elena knows is she can't let that happen. She has to _do_ something, so when she tells him that he's hurting her and he pulls away, she can't stop herself from reaching out to him as he falls at her feet. Comforting the offender, that's what this has come to; except that as she wraps her arm around him and puts her hand against the wound in her neck, she knows she doesn't see him that way, not anymore.

There have been many times that she understood just what a lost soul Damon is, but it's this moment, right now, when that truth resonates more strongly than all those other times combined.

Because now, it's truer than it's ever been. He's going to die, and he's never really lived.

 

 

Lying beside him on his bed is unnaturally easy to do. She shouldn't fit against him so well, so simply, as if she's done this many times. She shouldn't hear him sigh out that he loves her on a shaky, poignant breath, and it shouldn't break her heart into a million little pieces.

She already knew it, she did. But now she has to know it and not have him around, not have his antagonistic remarks to gauge her mood by, not wonder where he is in the house, listening to her and Stefan's conversations, not have him speed through a room and take her dish away before she's even set it down on the table.

Now she has to live without Damon, and though it's been hard to live with him many times, it's the sudden emptiness that looms before her that frightens her so much.

She presses her lips to his because she can't fathom it—a world without his eyes, without his smirk, without his shadow over every single thing she does. She kisses him once for all the kisses she ever could have given him but denied them both.

She's startled from his side by another voice. She rolls off the bed as though she's been caught doing something very bad, and though in her heart she knows it was all kindness and generosity, she also knows it was more than that. Apparently, so does Katherine.

Her vampire doppelganger looks at her without judgment; she's not accusing, just assuming in her statement that it's okay to love them both.

Then she whisks from the room leaving a wake of destructive information behind her.

So Elena does the only thing she can; she focuses on the thing right in front of her.


	2. Book of Damon

His brain is still fuzzy, though clearing more and more with each passing moment. Elena stares at him and he doesn't know what to process first: a) he's not dead, or b) Stefan gave himself over to Klaus (what does that even mean?), or c) Katherine loved him?

The problem is, he can't process any of it. It's all stuff he categorizes under: Not Possible.

(Just like Elena whispering, _I like you now. Just the way you are._ )

If he didn't know better, he'd think he was being _Punk'd_. Seriously.

Clammy sweat clings to his skin as he sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. The desire to clean up wars with the need to go find his brother. Right now, and drag him back from wherever he is. From whatever he's done, before it gets bad.

Before it gets _worse_.

The room spins, but Elena's there, her hand on his shoulder and the bottle of blood Katherine had tossed to her at his lips. "Drink more," she instructs, and so he does because he's really too weak to do anything else.

Her fingers skim over his ear, then dig into the hair at the nape of his neck, her short nails scoring into the base of his skull. He wants to ask her what she's thinking, but he knows. It's all about Stefan now. And it should be.

"What are you thinking?" she asks, and he laughs wheezily, choking on what must be Klaus's blood. It doesn't taste like anything Damon's ever had before. And though it makes him feel better with each swallow, it doesn't have the lush, heady taste of Elena's. (God, he wishes he could forget that—except, not really.)

"I've got to go get him," he says, clearing his throat. He finishes off what's in the bottle and corks it tight before laying it on the bed.

She nods, her forehead creasing. "But not tonight, you don't," she says. She catches his jaw in her palm and tips his head up so their eyes meet. "Go take a shower. I'll text him. Then we'll figure out what we're gonna do."

"Elena..."

She presses her thumb against his lips. "There's nothing we can do tonight," she says firmly.

It's not until he gets in the shower a few minutes later that he realizes she's being strong for him. (As if he needed another reason to love her.)

 

 

So, after he gets out of the shower, he falls back into bed, because the spirit is willing, but his flesh is still super weak.

"It must take a while to get better, like it took a while for you to get so bad," Elena reasons when he complains.

"Give me my phone," he demands, because Stefan still hasn't responded to her text.

"Damon, just rest," she says, and she puts her hand against his cheek. She's leaning over him, not joining him on the bed the way she had when they both thought it was all over.

"Phone!" he barks, and she sighs heavily before leaving the room.

He falls asleep before she comes back.

 

 

When he wakes, the sun is peeking through the curtains and he sits up really fast. The room doesn't spin, and he looks down at his arm. It looks completely normal. Pressing his fingers against the not-there wound, he realizes he's fine.

He's perfect again, at least his body is. The rest was never perfect to begin with, and now it's even more fucked up than ever. But that's all for another day and another dissection.

For now, there's only one thing to do. He gets dressed and listens carefully. Elena's in the kitchen, so he goes to find her.

She's sitting at the island on a barstool hunched over a cup of coffee. She doesn't look well-rested and it pisses him off that he slept so long and so hard while she was...doing whatever she was doing. God knows that she could have gone off on her own, thinking she could solve this shit-tastic problem that is just another result of _Being Damon_.

She glances up as he enters the room. Pushing her phone over so he can see the message on the screen, she says nothing, just picks up her cup and holds it between her palms.

 _It's over. Don't try to find me. Tell Damon I'm glad he's alive._

Damon reads it twice because it makes no sense. Then he looks at her. "What's over?"

"Our relationship," she says, and her voice is froggy, like she just woke up.

"Whatever," Damon says, moving over to the sideboard by the sink to pour himself a cup. Generally he'd start off a day like this with Scotch, but he needs to not go there, not until he gets his brother back. "He's just...he doesn't mean it. He just doesn't want you getting eaten by Klaus. Don't worry, I'll go get him."

"Damon, after he sent this message, there was nothing. Like, I tried calling, and it's like he shut it off, and I tried sending him more texts, but they won't go through. Like he doesn't have that number anymore."

"Well, that can't be right. We have contracts until the end of the year with Verizon."

She spins around on the stool and when he smirks at her, she lobs the phone at his head. Of course, he catches it, because his reflexes are perfect. "So, you're obviously fine," she says, and he can't tell if she thinks that's a good thing or not. He sets her phone down on the counter he's leaning against.

"I didn't ask him to do this," he says defensively. "I wanted to die, Elena. I wanted it, and he wouldn't let me. He locked me in the basement."

Tears appear in her eyes, and he feels like a world-class jerk. Like any of it matters. Like he wouldn't have done the same thing, to save Stefan from his own madness. Like he wouldn't have gone and willingly given up everything he had to keep his brother alive.

Because that's the sick thing about them—it's always been a matter of each of them deciding the other's fate. Only Stefan gets to kill Damon, and vice-versa. Because that's the way it should be settled, some day, when the time is right.

She gets off the stool and walks over to him. He thinks maybe another slap across the face is in order, and he probably won't stop her if she tries. He's sort of learned to just let her have at it when she so chooses, because it's the only time she's totally honest.

She slides her arms around his waist and hugs him.

He has to swallow a sudden lump in his throat. He wraps one arm around her because he's holding his coffee cup in the other. He rests his chin on the top of her head, and he wants to ask "Are we doing this now?" but he actually says, "I'm gonna find him, and bring him home, and you'll finally get to have that boring Mystic Falls life you've always wanted together."

She sniffles, but says nothing as she tightens her arms around him. Damon doesn't know what to make of it, so he presses his lips to her forehead and rubs her back, pretending it's brotherly concern running through his veins because what else is he going to do? He has to get Stefan back, and he has to forget everything that happened in his bed the night before.

It didn't mean anything—it's just the sweetness of a girl who thought the devil at her back was finally going to snuff out. (She didn't mean any of it; she was just trying to ease him out of this life gently.)

The least he can do is quietly restore her life to the status quo she prefers. (While hoarding the sweetness in a lock box of memories he will never surrender.)

She pulls away from him and grabs her empty cup. Turning to the sink she rinses it and then says, "I'm going to school."

Since that isn't what he was expecting, Damon says, "What?" and automatically grabs at her arm. He half-expected her to go galloping out to his car, anticipating his own plan of action. (For the record, he would've protested, but she would have ended up coming with him anyway, he's sure of it.)

She squares her shoulders and stands in front of him with an expression he hasn't seen in a long time—this is Elena in the parking lot of the school, smacking him for trying to kiss her, this is Elena confronting him at the Founder's Party when she saw bite marks on Caroline—and it thrills him even as it confounds him. "He just broke up with me, Damon. Should I really go chasing after him?"

"Well, uh—"

"My aunt died two days ago, and so did my father. Last night, I almost lost you, and today, apparently, I have lost Stefan. The only thing I can conjure up is exhaustion. So I'm going to school, and I'm going to try to have a normal day. I'll see you later."

She tugs her arm from his grasp and walks out of the kitchen. He stands there for a moment, knowing he can't blame her, but he can't follow suit. He has to go find Stefan; and he knows she'll care again when she's not mad anymore. (And knowing Elena and Stefan's track record, that will take approximately 24 hours.)

He runs after her. "I won't be here when you come home. I'm going to go find him."

"You do that," she says, not even looking at him as she swings her backpack onto her shoulder.

"Elena. You know whatever he did, he did it because he thought he had to. Come on."

She turns eyes on him that are hard and cold. "And I'm just doing what I have to, Damon."

 

 

She leaves the house, and he calls Caroline, who has an appropriately-sized overreaction to the news that Stefan seems to have willingly gone off with Klaus somewhere.

She gasps, sounds like maybe she's going to hyperventilate in his ear, and says, "What do you want me to do?"

Initially, he thought he would call Ric, take the Vampire Hunter and a few crossbows with him to look, but the truth is, he needs another vampire, and Caroline is his only choice. "Bring Bonnie with you to the Boarding House, I need her to do a locater spell so we can find them."

"You want me to come with you?" She sounds uncertain, maybe afraid.

"I won't let you get hurt," he finds himself promising, which isn't exactly a lie, but he knows if he has to choose between her and his brother, it would be just like choosing between Elena and Bonnie.

The fact that he even hesitates here rattles him.

"It's Stefan, Damon, you know I'd do anything for him. I'm just surprised you're asking for my help."

He waits a beat, realizing that Caroline understands things far better than he gives her credit for. "You and me both," he snarks, waiting.

"Hold on," she says, and there's a long silent moment. "What about Elena?"

"She's not coming."

"Okay, I'll find Bonnie, and we'll be there in twenty."

 

 

It takes four days to find them. And by them, Damon means Stefan, Klaus, and about twenty drained bodies. He and Caroline stand in the doorway of an old abandoned house in the middle of Nebraska and just stare at the destruction.

Caroline's hand grips his arm, and revulsion flips Damon's stomach. See, this is where he and Stefan always differed—on this side of things. Damon liked the hunt of one, once in a while. Mostly, he liked the seduction of women, who he used as his meals.

He'd never had the appetite for gluttony, for something that resembled war in the aftermath. Maybe that was because of The War, or maybe he'd have been like that no matter what, but it had never been his way.

It never would be his way, either.

He tries to talk to Stefan, but the brother he knows isn't there. Caroline cries, pleads, and reminds Stefan of all the _lessons_ she'd learned from him, but nothing seems to penetrate. Damon threatens Klaus, and Klaus tosses out one of his devil-may-care grins. "Stefan may leave whenever he likes. Do you want to leave, Stefan?" he purrs.

Damon never takes his eyes off his brother, and Stefan never wavers. He shakes his head, almost wearily, and says, "Go home, Damon."

"What about Elena?"

There's finally a flash in the eyes of a man who endlessly lectured Damon on Vampire Etiquette on and off for 146 years, but then he just turns away, breaking their stare. "Tell her..."

Damon can't imagine telling her anything. He can't imagine Caroline being able to keep it a secret, and he can't compel her now. What the hell is he going to do?

"Tell her whatever you want. This is where I want to be."

Damon gets pissed then and attacks his brother, intent on hog-tying him and taking him back to the Boarding House Rehab Center for the Criminally Insane. Klaus pulls him off, nearly stakes him, just rubs a huge piece of wood on the underside of his heart until the pain nearly makes him black out. Then he promises to kill Caroline if they don't leave them to their machinations.

Caroline ends up dragging Damon from the house, pulls the stake out, and shoves him into the backseat of his own car.

As she drives them away, she sobs out loud for miles, and if Damon wasn't in so much pain, he would tell her to shut up. As it stands, her gulping groans of misery mirror the silent tears that slip down his own cheeks.

 

 

They stop when Caroline sees a blood bank. It's four in the morning, so she's in and out without detection. They sit in the backseat together, and Damon drains two bags (normally an injury like this would take at least three, and he notes he feels better much faster than he thought he would) while she sips on one. The silence stretches out and she asks, "Did you know...he was capable of that?"

Damon closes his eyes against the burgeoning sunrise, resting his head against the seat. "Yes—no. Yes, but no," he answers. He knew Stefan was like that once upon a time, but he had no idea he could ever return to that, or that he would want to stay there.

"It makes so much more sense now," Caroline says in a soft voice. "Why he lived the way he did. It's never been like that for me. I've never—I get full, you know? Even though this—" she holds up her bag "—isn't as good as a human being, it's always been sufficient. If I have enough in my system, I'm okay. The only time it's hard to control is when I'm..."

"Upset," he finishes for her. "Or you want to fuck the person."

She flinches a little at his description, but nods. "Yes, and as long as I breathed through it, and thought about how much I didn't want to hurt the person, I've always been able to... _not_. He taught me that, Damon. _Stefan_ taught me that. How can that be who we saw tonight?"

He doesn't speak for a moment, because he doesn't know what to say. He can't explain it, and, worse, he can't even understand it. So he says the one thing he never imagined could be true of Stefan. "He's given up his humanity."

Maybe it's because Damon has spent these last few months fighting against those innate instincts within himself that he finds it so repellent; all he knows is that whatever he thought himself capable of, even in his darkest moments, it's not that.

(He feels like maybe he never knew Stefan at all.)

"You have to tell Elena the truth," Caroline says, and her hand wraps around his arm. He's not sure if she means her touch to be comforting or an enforcement of sorts, but he doesn't shake her off. He needs something, some sort of direction.

"He'll stay away because he doesn't want her to get hurt," he says, which is true, that's the one thing he knows for sure. That's what he would do, and regardless of the stranger before him in that old house, the flicker of recognition in Stefan's eyes had come when Damon said Elena's name.

"But he wants her to know, otherwise he would have told you not to tell her," Caroline says.

"How do I tell her that?" he asks, opening his eyes and finally turning his head to look at his companion.

"Just say it. Stefan's a ripper. Stefan's the worst possible version of a vampire. Stefan's not coming home." Caroline releases a shaky breath that starts to fog up the windows.

"Stefan loves you too much to ever let you see him like that." Damon says those words because he hopes they're still true.

"That's good," Caroline says, nodding. "Be sure to say that. She'll need to hear it."

He releases a steady stream of swear words, and Caroline's grip on his arm tightens. "You shouldn't say that," she says, and they both laugh half-heartedly.

( _I know you love Stefan, that it will always be Stefan. But I love you. You should know that._ )

There are so many things he should never have said.

 

 

When he gets back to the Boarding House, it's midday, but it's Saturday, and he finds Elena sleeping in his bed of all places. She rolls over when he walks in and throws his jacket over the end of the bedstead.

She's not just sleeping _on_ it; she's in it—under the covers, her hair strewn across his pillow, her tank top and pajama shorts-clad body _on his sheets_.

He wants to fucking kill himself right then, because he surely can't give her The Big Speech when what he really wants to do is climb in with her and, you know, strip her naked. And kiss her all over. And forget his own torment by losing himself in all her sweet, soft places.

But when she sits up and the blankets pool at her hips and she sees the bloodstains all over his shirt, he has very little time to think about how beautiful and sexy and insanity-provoking she is because she's all over him, checking him for wounds, demanding to know what happened, insisting that he let her help him out of his ruined garments.

It's her hands sliding up under his shirt and over his stomach that gives him the ability to be mean, because he simply cannot take it. "Elena, stop!" he shouts, shoving her away so hard that she falls back against the bed. "I just need you to stop. Get the hell out of here, and give me five minutes to myself, okay?"

Looking wounded, she scurries from the room, and he strips himself down, jumps in the shower and blasts himself with cold water.

When he goes downstairs ten minutes later, she's fully dressed and waiting like a naughty child in the great room. He sits down on the sofa opposite from her and tells her what he and Caroline practiced in the car. (He tells her everything, but he tries to make it as antiseptic as possible. There were multiple dead bodies, he says, not twenty. Stefan seemed detached, not like a completely different person. Damon thinks it's a phase, not a permanent state of being. Okay, the last one is a total lie, but he can't tell her the truth, not about that.)

She's stoic through most of it, but he saves the best for last _(Stefan loves you too much to ever let you see him like that; that's why he broke things off)_ and she finally breaks down, her face crumpling as she covers it with her hands.

He wants to go sit beside her, to hold her, but there is too much conflict of interest, and he just can't do it. So he sends Caroline a text message and she and Bonnie arrive a few minutes later. The girls take Elena up to Damon's room because that's where Elena wants to go, and he doesn't have the heart to tell them they can't.

He listens from downstairs as she cries and asks them _why?_ and says things like, _I don't understand_ and _how could he do this_ and _part of me is surprised, but part of me always knew he held back_ and Damon finally gives up and goes to The Grill. Ric shows up a while later, and they drink at the bar until Damon can't see anything except two Rics, two bartenders, and two Matt Donovans—who obviously wants to ask what's up, but doesn't.

Later, he wakes up on the couch at the Gilbert house and Jeremy is sitting on the wing chair just looking at him.

"Rough night?" the kid asks, one corner of his mouth quirking up.

Damon gives him the finger, because his tongue is so cottony, he can't make words.

Jeremy laughs and Damon lays an arm gently over his eyes to block out the light. He hasn't been this hung-over in a long time, mostly because his body's healing power tends to obliterate the sick feeling long before it can overtake him. He must have ingested far more alcohol than even he could fathom.

"You know, this is a perfect ending, right?" Jeremy asks, and Damon lifts his elbow slightly to give the kid a squinty, questioning eye. "You almost die, your brother saves you, and then he leaves town, paving the way for you to finally get with my sister."

Damon drops his arm back into place, swallows thickly and utters, "Yeah, it's the perfect frigging ending. You got me, Jer, I don't know why I'm not dancing in the streets."

"I didn't say it was a _happy_ ending," Jeremy says with some derision lacing his voice. "It's just perfect, for the situation. Everyone's miserable, but the one guy who caused all the misery, maybe he ends up happy."

"Do I look happy to you?" Damon bites out. He's seriously unprepared to have a battle of wits with Elena's brother right now, especially because Jeremy's just being mean, which is a little unlike him. (And Damon's head hurts like a mother fucker.)

"It's not the end _yet_ , Damon," Jeremy says, and then he stands up and exits the room much to Damon's relief.

He stays on the couch for another twenty minutes or so, until Alaric comes downstairs to join him, and then he sits up very slowly. "How much did we drink?" he asks when Ric doesn't look too bad, but sets a bottle of Gatorade and a couple of Advil on the coffee table at Damon's feet.

"You drank more than me, as usual, but not more than I've ever seen you consume before. But it definitely affected you funny." Ric gestures to his remedies until Damon picks them up and swallows the pills with a mouthful of juice.

"Shit," Damon mutters, rubbing a hand over his face. Maybe Klaus's near-staking of him messed him up more than he originally thought. His body just feels—off. He can't quite put his finger on it. "Why'd you bring me here, anyway?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Ric says brightly. "I moved in. Jeremy invited me, and Elena approved it while you were gone. I'm their new—" he makes air quotes "— _guardian_. You know, so Child Services doesn't come in and try to put Jer in a Foster home until Elena turns 18."

Damon smirks because Ric's grin is contagious. "Congratulations, it's a boy!" he quips.

Ric's smile just gets wider. "This has been a craptastic week, right? This is the one good thing about it. I got adopted. I think Jenna would like it, too."

Damon's chest squeezes in a weird way. "I'mma start calling you Uncle Ric," he says with a laugh, trying to ignore that feeling—whatever it is that's making him sort of sad.

Ric salutes him smartly. "Sounds good to me."

 

 

Elena moves out of the Boarding House. This doesn't surprise Damon, even if it disappoints him. He never thought she'd stay forever, but when he comes home one day and she's lugging a box out with all the things of hers that accumulated over time, there's no way around it. She's moving out.

(When she died during the sacrifice it nullified her house ownership anyway, which they figured out when Katherine let herself into the house to save him. They could redo the contract, and have her sign it again, but there's really no need now.)

Their eyes meet over the box lid as they come face to face in the entry hallway. He moves forward to take it from her automatically, since it's twice as wide as her and definitely heavier than it looks. "Is your trunk unlocked?" he asks, swinging back towards the front door.

Elena runs ahead of him to open it and nods. "Yeah."

They walk out to the car—Jenna's jeep is what Elena's been driving for a couple weeks now—and he shoves the box in the back, noticing that all her other things are already there. "Trying to make your escape while I was gone, huh?" he asks with a smirk as he shoves the tailgate into the locked position.

"No," she says, though her cheeks are faintly pink. "I just had time right now, and I've been meaning to get this stuff for a few days."

"It's okay, Elena. You don't owe me anything." _It's not like we were the ones who dated._

"I just feel like I need to be with Jeremy and Alaric. Jeremy's going through something—I don't know; he's distancing himself from Bonnie, and acting kinda strange. I'm worried he's back on drugs. I need to be there."

Damon only nods, because who's gonna argue with that? Not even he can find a way around it.

"We'll still be friends, Damon," she says, moving close to him and embracing him before he can quite read her intent.

He pats her back awkwardly and says, "Sure," because now he wishes he'd been just ten minutes later so he could have avoided this whole scene.

She tightens her arms around his waist and rubs her face against his shoulder. "Do you feel how I'm holding you?" she asks, and she jams her fisted hands into the small of his back. "Wrap your arms around me and give me a proper hug," she instructs.

He scoffs and manages to snark, "Bossy much?" but does as she commands and regrets it instantly. As soon as he pulls her closer, the way her body conforms to his makes him painfully aware that he is rarely this close to her—for good reason.

"We're having a big dinner on Sunday, everyone's invited." She tips her head back so she can look into his face. "You should come."

"I can't," he says, and he puts his hands on her shoulders to gently push her away. He's trying not to look like he's attempting to get away from her, but he sees the way her eyes drop for a moment, signaling that she is very aware of what he's doing.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm going to go get Stefan. This time without Caroline."

"Damon, no..." she starts and the look he gives her seems to silence her.

"You can't talk me out of it, so don't try. You've got to do what you've got to do, Elena, and I understand that. But if it were Jeremy, would you just leave him out there?"

She shakes her head. "No, of course not."

"Then you know I have to go. I have to keep trying."

"For how long, Damon? How long will all of us play this game—the one where we try to make the other one choose what we want them to choose? If you keep making the same mistakes over and over, you're bound to repeat history. And when you live forever, that's a serious problem."

He presses his knuckle under her chin, tipping her face up to his. "You don't have to worry about it anymore," he says.

"Right, because just saying that makes it so." She wraps her hand around his wrist. "Will you call me while you're gone, so I know you're okay?"

His heart trips at this request, and this offering. Like with that moment in her kitchen all those months ago _(You lost her too)_ , she still manages to surprise him constantly. "Sure, I will," he replies, like it's no big deal, like he doesn't feel slightly overwhelmed by her concern for him.

She hugs him again before getting in the car. As she drives away, he knows the difference between him and Stefan in a way he never has before. Elena pulled him from the dark—her simple compassion had awakened something in him he didn't even know still existed, and every day that she was in his life, he came a little further away from it—and a little further into the reality that he could be a vampire who lived with conscience, and abode by it. For Stefan, she only confirmed that he did not ever want to be who he feared he'd always been. She didn't have the power to pull him from it, so that left only Damon.

So, he'll do it. Because his brother didn't force him to love Katherine, and he didn't force him to love Elena, but he loved them both; it's only now that it has become a good thing.

He will bring his brother home for Elena, because that's what will make her happy.

 

 

He ends up in Tucson, Arizona, in a bar, without Stefan.

"So, what's a fine looking man like you doing in a place like this?" the drawl is affected and Damon lifts his head to scare whoever the hell it is away, but the face is infinitely familiar, though wearing a smirk, so it's not the one he loves now.

It's the one he loved then.

"Katherine," he states, and then he thinks he should have known. He'll never get rid of her, not until he puts a stake through her heart.

"You don't seem surprised to see me," she says, waving to the bartender to bring her one of whatever Damon's drinking.

He shrugs. He's not surprised, because he doesn't care, and he abruptly gets to his feet. There's no reason to waste his evening with her; not when he'd rather be alone.

"I have information you need," she says as he turns to leave.

"I doubt that," he responds, but he pauses, watching her as she throws back the shot the bartender places before her.

"Stefan's got a past I don't think you know about, because somehow Klaus knew a bunch of stuff about him—turns out he came to Mystic Falls to kill the Doppelganger and pick himself up a sidekick monster who would serve his greater purpose."

"His greater purpose? What's that?"

"He's looking for slaves—women he can impregnate and build his race of hybrids for total domination. In the meantime, he and Stefan are wreaking havoc, stirring up fear in little pockets all over the North American continent. They'll move on eventually, to Europe and Asia I suppose. But Klaus's plan doesn't entail a fast process, merely the fun of executing it."

Damon's never heard Katherine provide that much information about anything ever, and he ends up grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her out of the bar, away from open ears and curious minds. In the alleyway he gives her a shove until she's against the outer wall. "You've been running around with them?" he demands. "What, it's you, Klaus, Stefan, and Elijah? Do they take turns with you?"

She gives him a dirty look, as though he actually offended her. "A bit here and there—Klaus is still angry with me, but I manage to elude him from time to time. He killed Elijah again—apparently a Hybrid-Original can use the white ash dagger with no worries." She pauses and then adds, "Stefan's a ripper, Damon. Did you know that?"

The concern he sees in her gaze, something that once would have churned bitterly in his gut now just weighs heavily upon him. "I didn't. Until—I've seen him since he took up with Klaus. He's not himself."

"Apparently he's had a few historical moments, and Klaus knew about them. Stefan had some fame within the circles of information Klaus drew from. I actually think this is _him_ , and he's constrained himself for some time."

"No doubt, making you want him more," Damon says and he presses her into the brick wall.

Her eyes flash and she struggles against his hold; she doesn't overpower him, though he knows she could if she chose to. "If it made him happy, I wouldn't care a whit if he wanted to kill them all, but he's hollow like this, Damon. _Not himself_ is the least of the problem. He's as soulless as you wish you could be, and it's—" she pauses, as though she doesn't have the words for it. "It's heartbreaking."

"If you had a heart," Damon spits.

"Do you want me to say it—explain it? I loved you both, and had things gone the way I'd envisioned, I'd have had you both, all these years. We'd have been perfectly happy in a morally ambiguous three-way, killing as we went, never worrying about the state of our eternal selves. But you both ended up with too much time to think, and I had to choose. So I chose him."

"Then go be with him, Katherine. Spend eternity on a bender. Have at it."

"Don't you understand, Damon? By choosing him, I ensured he will never choose me. Even if he wanted anyone that way now, he would never pick me—a constant reminder of what he sacrificed? Never."

"Your faint resemblance to Elena isn't the only thing that would keep him from you, I'm sure." He pins her hard to the wall and breathes in her face, "But follow him forever, just in case."

He throws himself across the alley and makes his way toward the street, where his parked car waits.

"Will _you_ follow him forever?" she calls.

"If I have to," he retorts, and he means it with all his heart. He'll follow the trail of blood until one of them is dead, because he can't just let it happen.

He's alone in a hotel room on the night of the full moon. His skin is hot and tight and he wonders if the residuals from a werewolf bite are to feel edgy and uncomfortable in the wake of possible death.

He looks at himself in the mirror; watches his eyes turn yellow, sees his teeth change, not into fangs to make blood consumption easier, but something far more sinister. He stumbles backward into the towel rack, and as he sinks to the floor in realization, he tries breathing deeply, concentrating hard on not becoming a werewolf. The longer he focuses on that mantra— _Stay as you are, Stay as you are_ —he feels the fever calm within him.

When it passes, he calls Alaric, who flies from Virginia to Arizona to make sure he's okay.

"I'll call Vanessa," he says and Damon has no idea who that is until Ric reminds him with, "At Duke. Maybe there was something about vampire-werewolf Hybrids, and she just didn't tell us about it."

"Yeah, right," Damon scoffs. "She didn't even know the Sun and the Moon Curse wasn't real."

"Somebody somewhere has to know something," Ric says.

Damon's afraid the only one to ask is Klaus, and he's the last person Damon would want to know he has wolf tendencies. So he and Alaric drive back home, and he calls Caroline to set up a meeting with Tyler Lockwood.

 

 

Caroline mediates the meeting to reassure Tyler that Damon isn't going to try to kill him. (They do it at the Boarding House because Carol and Liz have made it clear that they are not okay with Tyler and Caroline hooking up.)

"Sorry about last month, man," Tyler says, shaking Damon's hand all man-to-man.

Damon gives Caroline a _what the fuck_ look and she just nudges his shoulder with hers.

"So, you ever heard of a vampire-werewolf Hybrid?" Damon asks.

Tyler shakes his head. "Not until Caroline told me about Klaus. Jules never said anything to me about anything like that."

"So you don't know anything then? You have no idea how your biting me seems to have turned me into a Hybrid?"

Tyler shakes his head and then reaches inside his jacket, pulling out an old book. "I found this in my dad's stuff, though. It was my ancestor's, George Lockwood's." (God, Damon hated that prick, but maybe he's about to come in handy.) "It's one of his diaries—we've got several of them. In one, he talks about Katherine, and the Moonstone, the Curse, everything. That's all the stuff in the 1860s. But this one, this is from the 1890s, when he came into contact with a Native American who told him a bunch of stuff. It was all mythical, but he wrote it down, just in case it was important. Of course, it never was in his lifetime, but when Caroline told me why you wanted to talk to me, I realized it might be helpful."

Damon reaches across the coffee table and takes the book. "Thanks," he says, and he starts flipping through it. "Have you read it? What does it say?"

"There's nothing about Hybrids—but there is stuff about doppelgangers. And I think that's what affects you. I talked to Elena last week, and she told me that you bit her the night you were dying from my bite. I think that's where it went weird for you."

Damon can't help the look of skepticism that comes over his face. He looks back at Tyler. "That's a lot of conjecture, Wolf Boy."

"But, it makes sense. If you read the journal, you'll understand more. You had doppelganger blood in your system, and then you drank the cure for the wolf bite, right? The journal talks about how the properties of doppelganger blood seal in other properties. Maybe it sealed in the wolf traits, so when you were healed, it changed something about your body chemistry."

He wants to be doubtful, but instead it all makes sense, just like Tyler said. The only good thing about it seems to be that he can control it, unlike Tyler who still has to lock himself up in the cellar once a month. "What happens when you drink alcohol? Do you get drunk? See, before, I could drink, get drunk, but never be sick afterwards. Now, it's like I have that one human quality back—I get a hangover."

Tyler looks puzzled, but answers, "It's just like before I triggered the curse. If I drink too much I get sick, same as everyone else."

Damon stands up and mutters, "That's just great!" Caroline looks at him with concern. "The one thing about being a vampire that was really, really good—no hangovers. Now, I don't even have that!" he snipes. "Fucking Klaus. Fucking Stefan. Fucking Elena. They all should have just let me die."

He steps over Caroline's legs and stalks towards the stairs. "Can I keep this?" he asks Tyler.

"Sure thing, man," Tyler says.

"You guys can hang out here if you want, you know, so you can spend time together. I won't tell your mothers." He leaves them sitting there and goes up to his bedroom.

"He's way nicer than you make him out to be, Caroline," he hears Tyler say.

She snorts. "He's a lot different now."

 

 

Elena shows up at the Boarding House a few days later. He hears her come in and he just waits quietly in the library until she finds him.

"Hi," she says timidly from the doorway.

"Hi," he says. He's re-reading George Lockwood's journal for the fifteenth time, but he's come to the same conclusion that Tyler had. Elena's blood had transformed his body into something new and powerful, something else he doesn't want. Something else he doesn't need.

He pondered something else though—and he thinks it's fitting. Elena's influence, her very existence is what had made him change. She had made him want to be different and as hard as it was to go through that, to find a way to live in the tension of it, it makes perfect poetic sense that her blood physically changed him.

(Now that he's not so angry, he can find the irony interesting.)

Besides, he was the one who bit her, and he wouldn't trade that, even though he knows it hurt her. He got to taste her blood. He got a little piece of her that he could in nowise expect to ever have again. Just like those moments of grace on his bed. Her lips pressed gently to his, her whispered words lingering in his ears, his own confession finally heard and remembered forever.

Yeah, he wouldn't change any of it, because it's all he gets, and he's not willing to lose it.

"So, Ric says you're a Hybrid." She stays in the doorway, like maybe she might run away at any given moment.

"Yup," he says, setting George's diary aside.

"How do you feel about that?" she asks.

He shrugs. "Kinda sucks, I guess. But I can control it, so, you know, it doesn't suck for me, say, as much as it does for Tyler."

"I'm sorry, Damon," she says, and she moves forward so quickly it's like a giant hand has ushered her into the room. "I'm so sorry..."

 _It doesn't matter_ , he thinks. That's what he wants to say, but he knows that won't make her happy, so he says, "I'll be okay, Elena. Don't worry."

She stands there awkwardly for a minute, and then he can see the tears in her eyes, and he really doesn't know what to make of it. She comes over to the sofa he's sitting on and looks down at him. He reaches for her hand and squeezes it. "Really. I'm alright. Not dead, remember?"

She sits down next to him, hanging on to his hand tightly. Then softly, she says, "I got accepted at Duke. With Ric's help, of course."

Oh, right, _college_. Oh, to have such simple, human worries. "Cool," he says because he's not sure what she wants from him.

She smiles a little though she never really lets her eyes come all the way up to his. "Yeah, cool. Jenna wanted me to go too a ‘good’ school. And it's not too far. I mean, it's only a three hour drive."

"Right, I remember," he smirks and she laughs, finally looking fully at him. She's sad, that's what it really is. He can see the weight in her eyes, and he wishes he could make it better. "I'm going to go back to looking for Stefan soon," he says, which is true. He'd just been trying to understand what was happening with himself first, but he never forgot that his brother is out in the black somewhere.

(What he needs is to find Elijah, because even though he doesn't trust that guy anymore than he does Klaus, Elijah had been an encyclopedia of information, and he might know a few things about doppelganger blood tricks, too. And since Klaus was the last one to put him down, he might get more serious about killing him for real.)

"You don't have to do that for me," Elena says, her fingers squeezing his.

(She knows him so well.)

"He's my brother, Elena," Damon reminds her, the superiority in his tone just vaguely reminiscent of said brother.

"Right, but he's not your responsibility. It's not your job to go get him and make him come home."

"I should just wait until I hear he's dead?"

She flinches, and he almost rejoices to see some sort of feeling still there. He's sure she's just repressed those emotions because she doesn't want to deal with them. (He knows how it is, not long ago he'd have found someone's jugular to ease his own pain, but now he's shoveling through it all, like everyone else.) "No, you should wait until he asks for your help. Because then, and only then, will you be capable of saving him."

He looks down at their joined hands, and watches as her fingers slide over and then between his. She curls her knuckles around his and wraps her free hand around both of them. Slowly, she brings his hand up to her mouth and presses it against her lips.

He's not sure what the point of this is, but the effect is rather embarrassing. He shifts in his seat a little and then tugs on his hand to end the contact, but she tightens her grip. She's staring at him with those doe eyes, and while he knows she can make him do anything with the right look, he has tried very hard to not make that obvious to her.

(Who the fuck is he kidding? She knows he loves her. What's to hide anymore anyway?)

He has a feeling his poker face isn't working at all right now, and he really wants to kiss her.

(Like possibly more than he's ever wanted to kiss her before, and he's really _wanted_ to kiss her before.)

"Elena..." he says, and it comes out a lot more like a question than he intends it too.

She blinks, and maybe that breaks the spell or something because she lets his hand go and she scoots back just a little, putting a bit more space between them. "Graduation's tomorrow. Will you come?" she asks.

He wants to let go of all the air trapped in his lungs because he was holding his breath for some odd reason, but instead he just swallows and tries to act like he's not turned on from, you know, her _kissing his hand_. "Do I have to buy you a present?" he asks.

She smiles, a full beautiful grin that brightens her whole face. "Of course!"

He smiles back and says, "Sure, I'll come."

 

 

In the weeks following Elena's graduation, Damon doesn't leave town like he planned. Instead, he finds himself at the Gilbert house, hanging out with and stomping Jeremy at _Call of Duty_ ("Vampire reflexes are _so_ not fair!"), eating dinner with them even though he doesn't need to, and in general having an uneventful summer.

(Jeremy is contending with some odd after-effects of returning from the dead à la The Witch's spell. Today is a good day where he's not being a little shithead, and Damon takes it for what it is.)

He hasn’t left town yet because Elena's leaving in a few weeks for North Carolina, and it's the last stretch of time he'll really ever have with her. Even as friends, how long can their relationship realistically go on? She's about to go and get a real life, grow up and do something productive, not linger in a town hoping her ex-boyfriend will show back up, cured from an insanity that no one could have anticipated.

He tells himself as soon as she's gone, he'll go back to looking for Stefan, because what else is he going to do?

(He knows she's right, that until Stefan wants to be _fixed_ there is no point in pursuing him, but Damon can't imagine just letting it go.)

He goes swimming with her, Tyler, Caroline, Bonnie, and Jeremy at the swimming hole. He spends weekends barbequing with Ric, like a couple of old bachelors who are too set in their ways to ever find some sense of permanency with a woman. They both conveniently forget that they are in love with women they can't be with because of death, or you know, an M.I.A. brother. Instead they drink (but not too much), play cards, and go to the movies on a regular basis.

Elena comes to his house and cleans different rooms, forces him to go through boxes of old shit and get rid of stuff that should have been burned decades earlier.

They spend an inordinate amount of time together, which, in turn, causes Damon to spend his alone time jacking off like a teenager because something weird has happened to him where if he can't have Elena he doesn't want anyone. (He tried hooking up with Andie a few times, but it just didn't offer him the boon it used to. And since drinking too much made him feel like crap, he had to abandon most of his old pass times.)

The worst moments are when he catches her looking at him—with something hungry in her expression that nearly destroys the self-control he exercises with strict adherence. It's crazy that the thing he wants is right there, and with a little coercion, he's sure he could have it. But he really only wants her if he can _have_ her, heart and soul, and so he won't take the counterfeit version.

(He just can't, not after everything with Katherine. He can't make those mistakes again, no matter how much he wants to.)

And since it's never gonna happen, he just makes do with being her best good friend.

"Damon," she says as they dig through boxes of clothes that he has no idea who they ever belonged to. "I'm going to miss you, a lot."

He glances up at her, sees that _very serious expression_ on her face, and promises recklessly, "I'll come visit you."

"You will?" she asks, the hint of eagerness in her tone curling through him dangerously.

"Sure, why not?"

She's quiet after that, and he decides he was just casual enough. They both know he'll never really do it.

 

 

He kisses her the night before she leaves for college, because he can't help himself.

It's the kiss he always wanted to give her, the one he tried to give her on this very porch months ago, the one that was stolen from both of them by someone who could never value it.

She's not dating his brother anymore (just pining for him), so it's not wrong. It's just a kiss, nothing more, something that won't mortally wound him.

(He hopes.)

He doesn't grab her and hold her against him; he doesn't press his body along hers to show her the claim he's staking. He just cups her face in his hands and thoroughly explores her mouth with his tongue.

He's shaking by the end of it, but he should be. It's goodbye, after all.

Her hands have come up to wrap around his wrists, and she stands close to him after it's over, sharing the heated oxygen between their noses, her eyes closed, her face more beautiful than he can ever remember it being.

"Damon..." she whispers, opening her eyes slowly.

"Shhhh," he intones as he presses his lips to her forehead. "Have a great time," he says, like he's just wishing her well for a few months until he'll see her again.

What he means is _have a great life_.

 _I'll always love you_.

 _Remember me when you fall in love._

Or, _forget me, and have the best life you can possibly have, which is what you deserve._

He thinks maybe some of that shows in his eyes because she stares up at him like she's gleaning life lessons in those silent seconds that he continues to hold her face in his hands.

Then he lets her go, runs down the porch steps, and jumps in the Camaro.

(The road to hell is paved with good intentions, you know.)


	3. Exodus (The Journey)

Alaric's two main points of advice for college? _Don't live in the dorms, and don't study so much you don't have any fun._

Elena thinks for his first real parenting advice, he's doing alright. It turns out she has to live on-campus as a freshman (as per Duke's campus rules), but she finds an apartment with a girl from Florida named Lydia Oliver. They talk on the phone a few times before they actually meet at school, and she's a cross between giddy, exuberant Caroline and strong, steady Bonnie, so Elena thinks she'll be the perfect match for her—at least for her first year.

The day she, Alaric, and Jeremy drive to Durham, Elena tells herself it's perfectly natural to have an ache in her chest that makes her wonder if she's having a heart attack at age eighteen. It's hard to leave home, move away from friends and family, start a new life. (Be an orphan two and half times before she attempts to be a grown-up—she knows she hadn't valued Jenna enough, and now she's gone forever.)

It doesn't really have anything to do with the vampire who kissed her the night before and is probably setting out for destinations unknown to look for his AWOL brother.

She hugs her own brother (maybe extra tight) and pseudo stepfather (she'd introduced him to Lydia as her stepfather because she didn't know how else to explain it) goodbye after they've unloaded all her boxes and set up her bed frame. The apartment is partially furnished, so she and Lydia don't have to worry about living room furniture or a kitchen table. They do find a Dollar Store and buy some dishes for their kitchen though, and that night Elena falls into an exhausted sleep in her unmade bed. She drags a blanket over her body and doesn't wake up until Lydia comes and jumps on her the next morning.

"Let's go check out the Sororities," Lydia says excitedly. "If we're going to have any kind of social life, we have to rush a sorority."

Elena goes along, because if she's anything now, it's a follower.

As she gets into the routine of school, goes to her classes, gets immersed in her studies, and in general, continues on with her life the way she always has, she realizes she's okay. She really is. Life has served her more lemons that she's known what to do with periodically, but she has learned to make lemonade quite nicely ( _for lack of a more clever analogy_ —sometimes she hears Damon so clearly in her head, it's like he's standing next right to her).

She wrote furiously in her diary for weeks after Stefan left. She lamented every moment of their relationship, every twist and turn, every lie or half-truth he delivered to her that she mostly just accepted and moved on from until the next one. She found her own truth in expunging her feelings. Though she sometimes has nightmares about the things Damon told her when he and Caroline went to find Stefan (things she made Caroline tell her later in full detail when she realized Damon had probably watered it down to spare her feelings), the interesting turn in those dreams? Damon is always there to comfort her.

She never startles herself awake because of fear.

What wakes her up, every time, is the way his arms feel around her. They seem to evoke anew the emotion that spiraled through her when she thought he would die; not to mention how the expression in his eyes makes her chest ache, and the lingering feeling of something needing to happen that never does that leaves her not-quite-satisfied.

It isn't that Damon has replaced Stefan in her affections; Damon always had his own place there, and she finally admitted that at least to herself the night he lay dying in her arms. What had developed since Stefan left? Well, that was for another diary; the one she hasn't started writing yet because she is too terrified to contemplate it.

It was funny that the truth about Damon came to her at the same time the truth about Stefan came to all of them. She doesn't doubt that her former boyfriend did not intend to abandon them all when he went in search of Klaus. She knows him well enough to be certain that his focused determination rested only on saving his brother. But the aftermath—whatever it was—had included some sort of decision that cut her out of his life, that cut Damon out, that cut everyone he claimed to love at all, out. Permanently, or not, she doesn't know. All she does know is that he broke her heart, but not in the way she would have once expected if she contemplated Stefan leaving her.

Then again, she had faced death and possible vampire life, and stood with Stefan on a grassy knoll and told him she didn't want to be with him forever, so maybe the reason it hadn't crippled her was more because of what she _didn't_ feel for Stefan than what she did feel for him.

That was the harder part, for her, really. Not that Stefan left her, but that she was more concerned by the deep and intense feelings she had for his brother. So she'd done the only things she could at the time—she'd moved out of the Boarding House and put as much space between her and Damon as she could. Then she missed him like crazy every day after that, and ended up inventing reasons to put herself back in his orbit.

Then he'd discovered he was part werewolf, and she found out from Caroline that had happened because of the blood he had taken from her.

She had that feeling again, the one where she knew, irrevocably that her existence was tied to the Salvatores—to Damon, specifically this time, (or every time?)—and she couldn't change how interwoven they were.

(And she really doesn't want to.)

In early November she's been at Duke for almost three months. She's at the kitchen table, textbooks strewn across it though she's foregone studying for a moment to tell Lydia a funny story from the summer when she and all her friends had been swimming at the water hole on the Lockwood property.

"Wait," Lydia says, holding up her hand. She's in the kitchen mixing cookie dough because she's declared she can't study one more minute and needs a snack. (Lydia's snacks always ended up being projects.) "Who is this Damon guy, again?"

"Stefan's brother," Elena clarifies.

"Your ex-boyfriend who left town for no apparent reason?"

(Elena had previously told Lydia the jist of the story minus the vampire, werewolf, doppelganger, and witch aspects.)

"Right! Anyway, so we're all taking turns on the rope swing—and Caroline, who has this crazy obsession with the movie _The Notebook_ starts re-enacting the scene—you know the one where Rachel McAdams is screaming and won't let go of the rope? And Damon, who just can't stand it, waits for her to swing back towards the shore, runs, jumps on the rope with her, and, of course the combined weight is just too much, so it ends up snapping the limb off the tree, ruining any and all future jumping from that tree. But of course none of us cared because we were all laughing too hard at how _pissed_ Caroline was at Damon for ruining her re-enactment."

Lydia stops mixing her cookie ingredients and sets the mixing bowl down on the counter in front of her. Turning, she just stares at Elena. "What?" Elena asks, wondering why her roommate doesn't find it funny. She's laughing about it almost as hard as she did when it actually happened.

"You know you're in love with him, right? The brother? You talk about him all the time." Lydia puts her hands on her hips the way she always does when she's delivering important information. She reminds Elena of Jenna sometimes with her blunt attitude. "And you never go out with anyone here, even though there's a ton of guys who'd love to hang out with you."

Elena shrugs, tries to look nonchalant (she's not as good at that as Damon is), and shakes her head negatively. The problem is that she sort of suspects this about herself, but she's never written it down, said it aloud, or had anyone say it to her. The only acknowledgement of feelings had been that one time, and they were Damon's feelings, not Elena's. And that was horrific and painful, not just because he was dying. (But mostly because he was dying.)

"Elena! Seriously, is it like bad manners or something to hook up with the brother of the guy who took off on you? I mean, I've seen his picture, the one you keep on your mirror in your bedroom? He's delicious. Is he just not into you, or what?"

"It's complicated," she says.

"I call bullshit," Lydia sing-songs, which is one of Sister Codes they'd heard from Chi Omega, the sorority they both hoped accepted them in the Spring when the selection process was completed.

"No, really, it's complicated," Elena says, and not for the first time she wishes she could tell someone—especially Lydia—the whole story. Somebody who wasn't Bonnie or Caroline or Ric or Jeremy who had lived through the whole thing too and lost people they loved and endured other challenges that were hardly on par with Elena's pathetic _I think I'm in love with my ex-boyfriend's brother who is a vampire who is a totally inappropriate choice who also loves me and if I do anything to start it up and it doesn't work out how will he ever deal with it especially now that Stefan's gone and never coming back apparently?_ She knows it's a significant problem, but Jeremy keeps having visits from the ghosts of his previous girlfriends, Caroline's a vampire trying to date a werewolf, Bonnie's a witch, and Jeremy's sometimes-girlfriend, and Ric? Well, he's Damon's best friend, so could she honestly confide in him? Probably not.

See? _Complicated._

"Where is he? This Damon guy?" Lydia asks when Elena doesn't expound verbally.

"Back home, in Mystic Falls."

"And you never talk to each other?"

Elena thinks about the few texts she's gotten over the weeks she's been away. They've not been much, just little updates, hellos from various places, reports that he still hasn't found Stefan, things of that nature. She always responds with a _thank you for telling me, but how are you?_ and his replies are always terse-sounding even if he doesn't mean them to be. _Great. Fine. Cool as a cucumber._

"A little," she confesses.

"I've never heard you talk to him."

"We text a little."

"Girl, you need to call him. If you're not getting over him, then you need to be getting under him. So call him."

"I don't know..." Elena can feel her anxiety go up at the thought, which is ridiculous, because no doubt Damon would be fun to speak to on the phone, and they'd have tons to talk about. Her life is busy and she has a lot going on. But part of her doesn't want to hear about the search for Stefan and know how miserable Damon must be without his brother.

"If you don't call him, I'll post one of those _Desperately Seeking...a Date_ flyers with your picture on it on one of the bulletins boards."

"Lydia!"

"I'm serious. You need to be off the market so that when we go places I can tell everyone _she's got a boyfriend, but me, I'm totally available_. For realz."

Elena laughs as her roommate slaps a scoop of dough down on the cookie sheet. "Okay, I will. I'll call him tomorrow."

"Promise?" Lydia says, pointing her spoon at Elena.

"I promise!"

* * *

When she does call him, she gets his voice mail. For some reason that turns her into the most awkward person ever and the message is something like, "Um, uh, hey, Damon, it's Elena, um, uh, I was just, um, uh, calling to, um, uh, say hi. Hi."

And then she just hangs up without saying what she intended to, which was, _please call me back_.

She's a straight up nutcase all of a sudden, and she can't help but hate herself just a little.

It's awkward because she shouldn't pursue it, that's what her gut is telling her. Elena before Stefan and Damon would have listened to her gut without question, but Elena since Stefan and Damon has had her gut let her down a few times too many to put much faith in it anymore.

But really, if she's being logical, the only thing dumber than embarking on a relationship with Stefan, who is a vampire, would be embarking upon one with Damon, who is his brother, is a vampire, is a werewolf, and of the two probably has more emotional baggage than any one man should carry for multiple lifetimes, much less just one. Even one that had been going on for nearly 170 years.

The funny thing is, Elena before Stefan and Damon had been more cautious. Elena, before her parents died? She'd been a reckless, carefree girl. She's the one who would go for it with Damon and never even think about the consequences.

The problem is, though, that the consequences that most concern her aren't the ones for herself. It's what it would be like and feel like for Damon that most plagues her mind.

Which is totally no way to go into a relationship either. (She can hear Jenna in her head: _Men and their baggage._ )

So, when he doesn't call her or text her within a few hours of her phone call, she turns her phone off and goes to bed. But in the morning, she gets up and checks it, expecting something. There's nothing except a sweet _I miss you_ text from Caroline and two missed calls from her Biology lab partner.

By the end of the third day, she decides he's given her all the answer she needs. He too has considered the consequences and he's not willing to risk it.

When he'd kissed her the night before she left he hadn't been trying to start anything. He'd been finishing it.

Ending it before it could ever really begin.

Stopping the madness.

Breaking her heart.

* * *

On Saturday morning, Lydia comes in and wakes her up. This isn't strange, because as a general rule Lydia tended to think Elena slept too late. (She was one of those annoying early risers, who no matter what, even though it's _college_ and they have their whole lives to get up early for whatever reason, rarely slept late.)

"Come on, Lyd," she moans rolling over. "It's _Saturday_."

"Hey, I'm not waking you up for me. _Some guy_ named Damon's on _my_ phone."

Elena sits up with a start and looks at the phone that Lydia has extended towards her. She knows Damon can hear everything that's said and she can't help but glance at her roommate questioningly. First of all, Lydia knows he's not _some guy_ , but she's playing it up like she has no idea who he is while her eyes dance mischievously.

(How in the world did he get Lydia's number? And why in the world is he calling her that way?)

"Apparently your step-dad gave him my number because he couldn't get through on yours?" She shakes the phone in front of Elena's face and Elena finally reaches for it. Putting it to her ear, she's just about to say hello when Lydia makes a funny face and acts like she's swooning.

Elena starts laughing, and hears Damon say in a very annoyed voice, "Hello?"

"Hi, Damon," she says, waving Lydia off, and rolling over so she can't see whatever other crazy thing she might do.

"Why did you turn off your phone?" he asks, and she can tell he's mad, irritated, whatever.

(For no apparent reason.)

"What do you care? You took five days to call me back, it must have been weighing on your mind."

He clears his throat. "My phone got a stake through it earlier this week, so I had to get a new one and retrieve my messages. It took a few days. Sorry." (He doesn't really sound sorry, he still sounds angry.)

"Oh, my god. Damon! Are you alright? Who tried to stake you?" Whipping around right as the words leave her mouth, she sees Lydia pause just outside the door. She glances back at Elena with a very confused look on her face. "I mean, who tried to stab you?" She recovers quickly. "Did you get in another bar fight? I told you, you need to stop drinking." She rolls her eyes to show her annoyance, like it’s just typical Damon behavior. (Which isn’t much a stretch really, now that she thinks of it.) Covering the mouth piece she asks, "Will you shut the door?" and motions her friend out of the room.

"So, you haven't told your new roomie all the deets, huh?" There's a bit more levity in his voice now, so at least her faux pas seems to have entertained him.

"Are you alright?" she asks again, more urgently.

"I'm _fine_ ," he says, dragging the word out. "Vampire, remember?"

"Who did it? Who tried to kill you?"

"Just Klaus. He's tired of me following him, Stefan, and Katherine around."

"Katherine?" Elena asks, completely shocked. "Katherine's back to running with Klaus?"

"Did I forget to mention that? It's not so much that she _runs_ with Klaus as it is that she hooks up with them periodically because she's worried about Stefan. It's...almost touching."

Elena's silent for a minute because she doesn't know what that means, or what to think about it. That Katherine would do anything that wasn't strictly for her own benefit seems completely impossible; she had at one point escaped Klaus, so if she'd willingly gone back, maybe she did have a heart after all.

(Not that Elena wants Katherine and Stefan...she shudders at the thought; mostly because the idea that Stefan could be with Katherine only confirms that the man she'd been involved with is completely gone.)

"So your phone got sacrificed, huh?" she says, trying to keep this as nonchalant as Damon seems to want it.

"Yeah, and it was the new iPhone, so I am _pissed_. Then I got your message. Are you alright?" His voice is softer now, and Elena falls back into her pillows, cradling Lydia's phone to her cheek.

"I'm fine," she says.

"Why did you call?" She can almost hear him smirk. "Just to say _hi_?"

"Shut up," she says and they both laugh. "I don't know. I just called. I just wanted to talk to you. I miss you." And then before she even knows she's going to say it, she blurts, "I want you to come visit me, like you promised."

She knows she just completely surprised him because there's no sound on the other end of the line, not even a breath. She thinks maybe it's a dropped call until the sound of him clearing his throat again wafts through the line. But still, he says nothing.

So, Elena forges on, because at this point, what has she got to lose? "Stop stalking Stefan. Stop trying to get yourself killed. You've more than repaid him for his sacrifice. It's not your responsibility. Come to North Carolina. It's beautiful here."

This time a deep breath prefaces his words. "Elena...it's not a good idea."

"It's better than whatever you're planning." He's silent again, and she knows she's got him there. She tries a different tactic. "Why didn't you ever ask me why I kissed you?"

"Because you didn't. I kissed you, remember?" His tone changes, that teasing, sing-song thing he sometimes uses to poke fun at serious things decorating his speech. "On the porch...dusky, summer night...you're leaving home...I'm the dark, handsome stranger who gives you one little thrill before you set out on the adventure of life..." he trails off.

"No, Damon, when you were dying; _I_ kissed _you_ then. And you're not a stranger. You're my best friend."

So, she doesn't know where that came from, but she doesn't mean to say it, and Damon, who obviously does not want to deal with the other thing she just laid on him, asks, "I thought Bonnie was your best friend?"

"Damon..."

"Because you only kissed me _because_ I was dying. What's to talk about? I already thanked you, what more do you want?"

"I want you to know that's not true. I didn't kiss you just because you were dying. I probably wouldn't have kissed you unless I thought I was going to lose you, that's true, but that's just because I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of how you make me feel."

He curses, and then there's silence again for a moment. When he comes back he says, his voice very determined, "This is not a conversation we're having, okay? I'm not going to be your other vampire boyfriend, and you don't really want me to be. You're just away from home, and homesick, and I'm this—"

"Boy, you've got it all figured out, don't you?" she interrupts.

"I do have about a hundred and fifty years on you, Elena, it's bound to come in handy now and again."

"You're a coward, Damon Salvatore. Don't call me again until you're ready to man up."

She jerks Lydia's phone from her ear and disconnects the call. Then she lays there, her hand pressed to her forehead and she wonders what the hell she's doing. Is she _fighting_ for Damon? Is she really doing this?

She sits up and calls for her roommate, who enters the room instantly, having obviously stayed just outside the door listening. "He's being a pussy?" Lydia asks, looking somewhat concerned. When Elena just nods and then tears fill her eyes, she feels totally stupid. How could she do that? Just put herself out there like that and then make assumptions about his feelings? Maybe he was over her. Maybe he didn't want her anymore.

 _(Hello, Elena, this is Damon Salvatore. He waited for Katherine for 145 years. Don't you think he'd wait a few months for you, at the very least?)_

(This time, the voice in her head sounds like Caroline.)

Lydia sits on the edge of her bed. "You know what it is, right? He doesn't want to be the rebound guy. Especially from his brother. Because what happens if his brother comes back?"

Elena wipes at her eyes, nodding. Sniffing, she thinks for a moment. Of course, she doesn't know how that would make her feel—theoretically, she can't imagine getting back together with Stefan, not after everything that's happened. But she can't know for sure unless she sees him again.

And if Damon has his way, he's going to make sure she does.

But that hasn't been going well, and she knows she needs to do more to put a stop to it. And, all that aside, she wants Damon now. She wants to be with him.

 _She wants to be with him._

Just thinking it loosens something in her chest. "I need to write in my diary," she says and Lydia's expression changes from all-knowing to confusion.

"Huh?"

"It's how I work stuff out. I write it down."

Minutes later she digs through a box of stuff in her closet and finds an empty leather-bound journal. One she'd bought months ago but had never written a single solitary word in.

She sits down at the desk in her room and finds a pen.

* * *

Time goes by—hours passing in a flurry of scribbled words and self-examination. She's nowhere near finished when Lydia comes back into her room and makes her stop to eat something.

In the late afternoon, she attempts to work on some of her school assignments, but really she doesn't want to lose her train of thought and eventually goes back to her journal.

By the time midnight rolls around, she's written more than twenty pages. About Damon, about how she feels about him, about how her relationship with Stefan really enabled everything with Damon to happen.

How through every scary, hard, unforgivable thing there had always been this softness there, this feeling that grew and grew and grew and now consumes her.

The part that most astounds her is the progression of her relationships and what she wants from them, what she wants from _life_. She started by detailing things about Matt—things she hadn't thought about in such a long time—how the reality of their relationship had been a non-choice. They just looked at each other one day and decided that what they already had was something different. She didn't choose her relationship with him—it had been in place for all of her life, her mother and his mother close friends, the inevitability of it written in the stars. (That's the way Matt described it once.)

With Stefan, it had been a definite choice. She had liked him, felt that pull of attraction, and pursued it. Doing so had made her feel alive again; and reassured her that despite her parents' deaths, life went on, and it was okay to live it.

But each of those relationships had been about something bigger, something going on with the course of her life, something that didn't speak to just the connection between her and Matt or her and Stefan.

If she were to choose a relationship with Damon, it would be solely because of Damon. Because of wanting what only he could bring to her life. It wouldn't be an escape, or some planned thing her mother had orchestrated since she lay in a cradle.

It would be her first adult relationship.

(It would be her only adult relationship.)

Damon would never end things with her, and she doesn't think she would ever end them with him. Because when she thinks about it—really, truly envisions a future with Damon, words like _inevitable_ and _choice_ seem to shrivel up into insignificance. Whatever she would have, cultivate, embark upon with Damon would overshadow anything that came before it, and in turn would obliterate any possibilities after it.

Because when Damon loved, he _loved_.

Stefan once told her that a person's normal human attributes were magnified when they turned into a vampire. She imagines being loved by human Damon Salvatore would have been sufficient for her needs, but being loved by the vampire version would easily put all others to shame.

She puts her pen down and massages her cramping hand. Figuring all this out would probably be much easier than actually making it happen, especially since she was 150 miles from him _and_ she hung up on him earlier.

Climbing into bed, she gives up trying to work it all out in one day. She's mentally and emotionally exhausted, and she's afraid she's only broached the tip of the iceberg.

* * *

The following Friday, she comes home from her history lecture early. The professor had been droning on and on about Paul Revere, and she just couldn't handle it anymore. When the text is less dry than the teacher, she can't help but miss Ric. His classes were fun _and_ interesting.

She plods up the steps to her second story apartment and it's just as she's hitting the top of the stairs that she sees a car in the parking lot she hadn't noticed before.

(It's a blue Chevy Camaro, circa 1967.)

All of a sudden, her heart is in her throat and she hesitates. She even has an insane moment where she thinks about running back down the stairs and away from whatever is about to happen.

(Of course, she doesn't. But still, she totally wants to.)

Lydia's already home; she and Damon are sitting on the sofa chatting as Elena walks in. They both glance over at her, but she can only look at one of them and the one who commands her attention smirks just slightly, his eyes flashing blue fire. "Lydia _invited_ me in with no hesitation whatsoever."

He's mad that she's done nothing to protect herself against vampires; which is laughable, since, _you know._

"Show Damon that necklace I made for you, Lydia," Elena says, dragging her eyes away from his.

"Oh, yeah, isn't it great?" Lydia says enthusiastically, leaning towards him and showing him the specially beaded chain around her throat. Each little cylinder had a sprig of vervain in it. "Nice," Damon says, smiling sweetly at her roommate.

Lydia can't seem to help herself; her eyes swing around to Elena's, goggling wildly, and Elena can all but hear her screaming, _Oh my god, he's so hot!_ She manages not to say it aloud however.

(Not that Elena blames her. He is. So hot. So beautiful. So _here_.)

He stands up as Elena moves further into the room, and she tosses her backpack down onto the coffee table. They face each other with just a few feet between them and Elena forces herself not to throw her arms around him, even though that's all she wants to do.

Well, that's not _all_ she wants to do, but she's not sure any of it is acceptable to him.

He stretches one arm out towards her. "What, no hug for your _best friend?_ " Then he smiles, and Elena forgets to have any decorum.

He's here. She would like to think he wouldn't have come all the way there for no reason—in response to her challenge, perhaps? So she steps forward and reaches up to wrap her arms around his shoulders. He pulls her in tight and hard, but then lets her go far too quickly. She keeps her arms around his neck for just a moment longer, looking up into his face as he's pulling back. She caresses the curve of his jaw briefly, just a soft touch of her fingers against his face, and the angry fire in his eyes changes instantly to something just as hot, but potentially more lethal.

Elena feels her cheeks flush.

"It's good to see you," she manages to get out and his lips quirk in a grimace, almost as if her words pain him.

"I'll leave you two alone," Lydia says, and she starts to move towards her bedroom. "I told Damon about the party tonight at Chi-O House, and twisted his arm. He's totally coming with us, so don't let him weasel his way out of it."

"She promised me alcohol," Damon says sagely, his hand patting Elena's hip awkwardly until they let go of each other entirely.

"Did she now?" Elena asks, looking at her roommate over Damon's shoulder as Lydia fans herself and makes exaggerated _oh. my. god._ expressions as she backs out of the living room.

"Yes," he says, his eyes resting on her face a little too avidly. She can feel more blood rushing into her cheeks all over again the harder and longer he watches her. "She also said it's the Sorority you're hoping to get accepted to. She said it's the _best_ and the _coolest._ "

Elena nods at him, trying not to laugh as Lydia gives her a final thumbs up as she disappears from view. "We've been around to several of them, and we decided we liked that one best, but they can't show us if they like us best because there's all this anti-favoritism stuff." She lets her gaze connect fully with his. "You could have just called," she says.

"Eh," he shrugs. "I figured if I was going to burn my bridges, I ought to do it in person."

Elena smiles because she can't be fooled by his self-preservation tactics any longer. She _won't_ be fooled by it. "We'll see what happens when you light the match."

So, instead of giving him any opportunity to burn bridges, she gives him a tour of her apartment. Saving Lydia's room for last, she gives her roommate her best look of desperation, and Lydia comes out of her room and begins explaining the rushing process to Damon. (To his credit, he seems fascinated by it, listening intently and asking questions as they cook dinner.) Before anyone has time to say so much as _we're never going to happen, Elena_ , it's time to start getting ready for the party.

Elena escapes into the bathroom to take a shower. When Lydia comes in a few minutes later, she knows her roommate is about to say a bunch of stuff that Damon will be able to hear, so she flips on the radio that sits on the window ledge before also turning the water on.

"He has really good hearing," Elena explains when Lydia has to lean close to her to hear her whisper.

"Why don't you want to be alone with him?" she demands.

"Because, he said he came here to burn bridges, which means he came up here to give me the _we're just gonna be friends forever_ speech. I don't want to give him a chance to say that."

"That's exactly why you should be alone with him!" Lydia all but shrieks. Quieting her voice at Elena's look of horror, she hisses, "Have you never seduced anyone? Oh, you're so pristine, Elena! Seriously. He wants you, I could see the _thing_ between you as soon as you walked in. God! Capitalize on that chemistry. Some things just can't be manufactured, and seriously. _Seri. Ous. Ly._ Just go for it. He's a guy, who's into you, he's not going to say no! And once he gets a taste—he's not gonna walk away."

Elena knows Lydia isn't giving multiple meanings with her taste analogy, but she can feel a pulsing between her legs at the thought of him tasting her anywhere. She has a flash of him taking her blood in that way too, and thinks it wouldn't hurt the way it had that night in the town square.

After she makes Lydia leave the bathroom, for the first time in her whole life, Elena Gilbert takes a cold shower.

* * *

Once they get to Chi-O House, she has to introduce him to all the girls she's been working hard to impress and strike up friendships with at previous social events. Damon is typically Damon, kissing all their hands, and flirting to an annoyingly charming degree. The reaction from all of the girls is pretty much unanimous, and she's glad she somehow never noticed (or cared about) the effect he has on women before, because it would have driven her completely crazy. (It still might.)

Lydia brings them both a bottle of beer and Damon wrinkles his nose as he pops the cap off and takes a drink. "This is the alcohol you promised me?" he asks, giving her roommate an annoyed head tilt.

Lydia looks at Elena, flustered. "He likes Scotch, or Bourbon," Elena says and Lydia disappears to find something more appealing to him.

Damon slings his arm around her neck as he takes another swig of the offending beer. "How do you know what I like?" he asks.

Elena presses her own bottle to her lips and looks up at him from the corner of her eye. As she swallows, she smiles. "Like I haven't been watching you drink yourself silly for more than a year? I know everything about you, Damon Salvatore."

"Let's hope not," he mutters, just as Lydia reappears with a bottle of _Old Crow_. She hands it to him and he makes another dissatisfied face. "The cheap stuff. Ah, well, beggars can't be choosers, right?"

"Don't be such an ass," Elena says and he starts laughing.

"Should I just drink straight from the bottle, or what?" he demands of her as he turns back to Lydia. "Thanks, honey," he says and Lydia turns bright red.

Elena rolls her eyes and gives Lydia an arched brow look as she grabs the hand he's got hanging around her neck and pulls him towards the kitchen of the Sorority house. She's never seen her roommate so awestruck before, and it's slightly irritating since she knows there's no way she's been compelled to act that way. "There are glasses in here, I'm sure."

In the kitchen, they have to squeeze between people; some are just standing around talking, but two couples are making out without regard to their audience. Damon says, "Have some class, get a room," to one of the guys he elbows as they move towards the cupboard Elena thinks the glasses are in.

Elena looks over in time to see the pair leave the kitchen and she realizes Damon compelled either one or the both of them. She slaps a glass into his hand and hisses, "Knock it off!"

"What?" he says, finishing off his beer before pouring some whiskey into the glass. "It was crowded in here. I was just making more room for us." He sets the empty beer bottle and the whiskey container down on the counter and gives her another smirk. "You shouldn't have brought me here if you didn't want me to misbehave."

She just glares at him as he throws back the contents of the glass. Then he puts it on the counter next to her and steps forward so she's pinned between it and him. "That is why you invited me here, right?" he asks. The liquor has a sharp bitter tang to it and he's close enough that she gets a good whiff of it from his breath.

She stares up at him, the desire to run coursing through her veins again. That popular phrase _biting off more than you can chew_ flashes through her brain like it's on a reader board, so she takes a long slow drink of her beer and keeps her eyes steady on his.

The only thing she can think to do is give it right back; if she shows any sign of weakness he'll use it against her, she's sure (meaning, he'll use it as an excuse to run away). The only thing that occurs to her is so bold, so unlike anything she's ever done, she knows if she thinks about it too long, she'll talk herself out of it; so she just goes for it, just like Lydia said.

He's wearing his standard dark button-down shirt and jeans, and she reaches for the button that's fastened at the top of his sternum and undoes it, sliding her fingers just inside the lapels, skimming his chest with her thumbs. "Right," she says, adding a little extra enunciation to the end of the word, the way he's fond of doing himself.

He visibly restrains a shudder; she can tell he's completely unsettled as he takes a step back.

(Which, one point for Elena, right?)

He grabs his glass again and pours himself another drink. Clearing his throat after a hasty swallow, he looks back at her. "Want to show me around this place?" he asks, and Elena suppresses a grin.

"Sure," she says and reaching for his hand she leads him out of the kitchen.

* * *

Three beers into it, Elena decides she's not drinking anymore. If anything does happen between them, she doesn't want it to be any fuzzier than it already is. She's not a big girl, but she's always had a relatively high tolerance especially if she's not downing hard liquor.

(She also knows she's not really a good judge of herself and how drunk she actually is, but she'd never tell anyone that.)

After the house tour, and standing around talking to people she doesn't really want to spend time with (or watch as they all but drool over her not-date), she coaxes him onto the dance floor—which isn't hard because Damon loves to dance, and Elena knows this about him. They're having a good time, the crowd is thick and lively, and when a slow song comes on, she just reaches up and wraps her arms around his neck, not even asking him if he wants to dance with her.

(She knows he does, even if he'd never admit it.)

So she presses against him, rests her head against his collarbone and waits until his arms slowly surround her. He doesn't hold her too tightly, but one of his hands spreads out over her lower back in a comforting gesture.

His lips just barely brush her ear as he says, "You're totally a shoo-in for this place. They all love you." She jerks her head back, and before she can even narrow her eyes to glare at him, he says, "I only compelled two of them, and that's because one was bitchy and the other wouldn't take _no_ for an answer. The rest of them had already pretty much decided to let you in. Lydia, too."

She can't help but smile up at him. It's sort of ludicrous, but it's how she becomes certain that he still loves her. No guy she's ever met would listen to all the rules and wherefore of Greek life and then bother to campaign for her in his weird-Damon way if he didn't still care deeply. It makes her heart pound in her chest, and she wonders which of the girls propositioned him. (Probably Tess, who has a terrible reputation; Elena's heard lots of stuff about her without even trying.) She's about to ask him who as the song is winding down, but then she decides it doesn't matter. He said _no_. That's what matters. She tips her head back, unable to keep the smile from widening into a full-fledged grin of utter happiness. His lips twitch in return and he tilts his head like he's asking, _What?_

So she leans up, and touches her mouth to his.

His eyes flare and she feels the tension in his body instantly. He doesn't kiss her back, but gives her shoulder a gentle shove, smirking as he says, "I always thought you were a happy drunk, I didn't know you were a slutty one."

So she punches him, because, well, that's what Elena does when Damon pisses her off.

But because they're in a tight crowd of people and Damon's reflexes are vampiric, she actually ends up hitting, quite forcefully, the arm of the guy dancing next to them. "Ow! Man! Back off, bitch," the guy yells, and then Damon decks him and somehow all hell breaks loose.

(Drunk people throwing punches left and right, and nobody knows why, how, or what for.)

By the time he hauls her out of the melee, there's a free-for-all going on, and Elena worries someone will call the cops.

Once they're outside in the cold night air, Damon presses her roughly against the side of the house and says, "We need to talk."

For a moment she thinks the nippy blast of November weather is clearing her head, but then she mutters, "No, what we need to do is fuck," and she knows she's far drunker than she thinks she is, because she would never say that under normal circumstances.

"Holy shit," Damon breathes, turning away from her. (Apparently, he agrees, at least that normally, she wouldn't say something like that.)

Elena shivers as he paces away from her. It's got to be close to ten o'clock and she's outside without a jacket. Besides now, she thinks she might start crying because the whole stupid evening is dissolving into everything she doesn't want it to be. Before she can suggest he just take her home, Damon pivots on his heel and marches back to her.

One of his hands surrounds her face, tipping it back so that he can look into her eyes. The outside lights give her just enough clarity, but Elena knows she's never seen him quite this desperate, not even when he force-fed her his own blood. His mouth opens and shuts twice before he finally says, "This is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever done. _Ever_."

Then he jerks her close and kisses her.


	4. Song of Damon

There are some things that Damon plans out in his head. Mostly they're ritualistic things, like when he thought he was going to die. He had that old bottle of Scotch in the cabinet, and he just wanted to enjoy the flavor one more time before he let it all go. When he killed Rose, he planned to make it nice for her. He'd also had an elaborate plan for when he was finally reunited with Katherine, but why dwell?

Sometimes, he imagines what he's going to do if he ever gets Stefan away from Klaus, which is: he's going to beat the holy hell out of his brother and give him a choice. Come home and be a person again, or he'll finally stake him like he's promised for a century and a half.

And then there's the fantasy about making love to Elena. There's candles and white curtains and a bed that's perfectly made, with strawberries and champagne chilling in a nearby bucket. There's him, pleasing her over and over and over until she can't remember anything but wanting him. And, finally, it's his turn to get everything he's always wanted.

(So shoot him, he's a hopeless romantic.)

What it's not supposed to be is him kissing her so hard he's about to put her through the wall of a Sorority house, or her clawing at him, her arms and legs scissoring against him until he's afraid she's having an epileptic fit. The only thing he can think to do to chill her out is to unfasten her pants and shove his hand down them.

It works like a charm because she's so shocked, she quits moving; his fingers find her hot and wet, and the idea that she wants him that much that fast makes his head spin. A sound he's never heard from any woman before erupts from her throat, something between wonder and desperation and then her hips lift against the pressure from his hand, and she starts riding it, and the only thing left for him to do is watch it happen.

In a matter of a few moments, she blisses out right in front of him, her head lolling to the side as she clenches around his fingers. She sighs his name so sweetly, and runs her tongue over her bottom lip in such a way that he can practically _feel_ the sensation across various portions of his own body. He almost loses his head entirely, almost forgets that they are just outside of a public building. He just wants to shuck her jeans down and sink himself inside because as good as she feels around his fingers, he can easily envision her warm and slick and welcoming around his cock, and god, he hasn't had anyone in a very long time.

He hasn't wanted anyone but _her_.

The one that he should never, ever have— _can_ never, ever have, really. (Should not even let himself fantasize about much less actually take her when she's offering herself up for some inexplicable reason.)

It's a huge mistake, one that now that he's opened himself up to in a small way makes him feel like he's jumped onto a runaway train. There's no slowing down, and there's no getting off.

Well, actually...there is _getting off_ which is exactly what he needs to happen, the sooner the better.

As if Elena can read his mind, her hands fumble at his belt and then she's sliding one into his underwear the way he just did to her and he finds himself groaning her name as her soft fingers curl around his erection. "'Lena...no, no, not here—oh, fucking hell..." and then she shushes him and her other hand curves around the back of his neck and she pulls his face back to hers so she can suck on his bottom lip while she jerks him off.

If Damon could have a coherent thought, it would be: _we are so acting like college kids right now_.

But it's fleeting, not coherent, and all he can focus on is the unbelievable pleasure building under her ministrations, and the way her tongue flicks over the tip of his teasingly, like they aren't doing something that could totally get them arrested any minute now.

(This is what he gets for telling that guy in the kitchen earlier to get a room.)

His hands end up on either side of her head, flat against the brick wall behind her, bracing himself as her fist tightens and moves with more speed around him, like she can hear him chanting _faster, faster_ in his mind. He grunts when he comes seconds later, and then he's just standing there with his forehead pressed to hers, breathing hard and feeling completely exposed—not just because he's hanging out of his jeans at the moment.

This wasn't what he planned for this day at all. He really had traveled to Durham to see Elena, to tell her in person that they could never have a relationship, not when he knew he was just a stand-in for Stefan. He was going to be straight-forward, mature, as un-Damon-like as possible about it, because he wanted Elena to understand that all he needs from her is her respect. Anything else is an impossibility, and he has found a way to be okay with that.

Except, now, somehow he doesn't think she'd believe him if he tried to give her that speech, especially since she's using the hem of her shirt to wipe his semen from her hand. (Inconsequentially, he notices her shirt is torn—the only casualty from the fight they’d been involved in.)

She gently tucks him back into his pants and zips him up. Then she slides her arms around his waist and hugs him, burying her nose against his throat and breathing in deeply. Her lips whisper over his skin and she says softly, "Let's go home, Damon."

So, he just lets the train carry him away, because despite his intentions, and the literal, inescapable knowledge that he will regret everything he's about to do, he can't _not_ do it.

He loves this woman, and if he can have her, even for a moment out of time, he won't deny himself.

He never was _that_ good, even back when he was human.

 

 

It's a four-block walk from Chi-O House to Elena's apartment, and by the time they get there, they're kissing again. Damon hasn't even attempted conversation at all because he has no idea what might come out of his mouth. It's not worth the risk, so instead, the second he has her inside the door of her quaint little apartment, he's dragging her ruined shirt up and over her head and flinging it aside. She finishes unbuttoning his more than an hour after she first popped the top one undone (which might have been what fried his brain in the first place), and shoving the shirt down his arms, she presses her mouth to his chest, right over his heart. Her tongue dances over his skin and she makes an _mmmm-hmmm_ sound in her throat as she presses another kiss against one of his nipples.

Then her tongue flicks out over it, and Damon is a man possessed.

The rest of their clothes decorate the floor as quickly as he can manage to get them off (both hers and his that he removes himself) as he walks her backwards towards her bedroom; then he's tossing her on to the bed, following her eagerly, and pushing her thighs apart to shove himself inside her with what he would deem necessary roughness.

(She's tight, oh-so-warm, and just where he's needed to be for longer than he can remember.)

Elena moans, then makes a sound of discomfort, and he tries to pull himself back, to figure out what it is. She says softly, "My hair, my hair!" He jerks her up so he can sweep it out from underneath her, so neither of them is laying on it, and mumbles against her lips, "Stupid, pretty hair."

She laughs as her hands surround his face and she locks her legs around his hips as he moves inside her. She arches just right and finds the rhythm with him, and they stare into each other's eyes as they chase the lightning. He's too close, and worried about leaving her behind when she leans up and takes his bottom lip gently between her teeth. He lets his eyes fall shut and focuses on getting her to make just the right sound.

She comes first, but he follows so quickly it's hardly a victory on his part. And regardless, he feels like his heart's been ripped out of his chest. It beats furtively somewhere between them and as he rolls off of her he has a wave of panic wash over him. He just can't deal with all the emotions spiraling through him, all at once, like this, _with her_.

The only thing that could make this more perfect is if she'd let him bite her, and he really has no expectation for that, because, well, he had no expectation for any of it.

(There's some part of him that knows he can never let that happen. This—whatever _this_ is, it's not a snatch, feed, erase, situation—and it's not the other thing, either; it's not when feeding becomes a part of it the same way intimate touches become second nature.)

This was supposed to be some sort of break-up trip even though there was nothing to break-up. Ric will probably threaten to kill him when he goes home to Mystic Falls, because there is no way he won't know. Damon has no poker face when it comes to Elena.

She curls up beside him, her arm snaking around his waist. She puts her head on his shoulder and whispers, "Don't you dare leave while I'm sleeping," and then she promptly goes right into it.

He tugs a blanket over them and tucks his arms around her. Like he can leave now.

(Or ever.)

 

 

He must sleep himself at some point, because the next thing he becomes aware of is her fingers drifting over his belly in a random pattern. She circles his navel and then drags one digit down the line of hair under it. She stops just shy of where he would obviously like her to touch him, because he's hard again.

So he captures her hand and drags it to where he wants it and she immediately embraces him. Then she says, with a smile in her voice, "I wondered how long it would take you to wake up."

He makes a sound in his throat that's partly acknowledgment and partly a moan of ecstasy because her fist has just tightened perfectly to slide all the way to the head of his cock to give it an affectionate little squeeze. "How long did it take?" he asks, and his voice sounds like he's been smoking something for about forty years.

"Less than sixty seconds," she says with a little giggle.

His eyes pop open when she lets him go and moves so that she's straddling his knees. Holding her hair back with one hand, she leans her face down and inspects him before looking up at him. With a smile that outshines the sun, she declares, "You're beautiful." Forget about what even her light touch can do to his most sensitive anatomy, her words more than melt any sort of emotional resistance he might have been trying to recover.

Then she kisses the tip of his penis and involuntarily, he closes his eyes.

(She has way too much power over him, and he can't do a damn thing about it.)

She teases him until the muscles in his thighs are trembling, and just when he's about to curse God and every living thing in the world, she moves up and takes him into her body, which isn't what he's expecting at all. Her hands grip his shoulders and she starts sliding up and down on him with purpose. She makes these delightful sounds, chewing on her bottom lip until he can't help but reach up and yank her head down to his so he can kiss her. Her tongue rushes into his mouth, and he feels possessed by her in all the ways a man wants to be owned by a woman.

Only this woman, forever and ever. That's what he wants, what he _needs_ , and in that moment he can't even remember all the reasons he's got in his head for why it's an impossibility.

He arches under her, his hands sliding down her in a sweeping full-body caress until her hips are in his grasp, holding her tight against him. She sinks her teeth into his bottom lip, and he realizes this is some sort of signature move for Elena, but it seems to signal his impending orgasm more so than hers. When she cries his name, he loses it, pressing himself so deeply inside her he has no idea where he starts and she ends, only that the two of them together is more than even his fertile imagination could have ever dreamed up.

She's so in sync with him, or at least as hungry, which is his only consolation when he puts his hand between them to give her what little she still needs to get there. She groans, low and long, deep in her chest. When it hits her, her neck arches and she throws her head back, and Damon knows he's never seen anything more gorgeous than Elena like _that_ because of _him_.

It's so arousing, he could roll her over and chase it again, but he's afraid of her hurting her, so he restrains himself.

She lies against his chest in the aftermath, breathing erratically for several long minutes. She seems incapable of _not_ touching him because her fingers are still twitching over the skin she can reach—which is mostly just his shoulders and upper arms at the moment—but then he hears her sigh out his name again, all breathy and sweet.

"Hmmm?" he responds, because really that's about all he's capable of right now.

"I love you," she says, and her voice is incredibly quiet, but totally clear. She lifts her head almost immediately so that she's looking into his eyes. She presses her mouth over his, as if to soothe him. "I love you," she says again, this time with more volume.

The pain in his chest is a combination of hope warring with futility, and he wants to believe her more than anything, he really does. But he just can't let himself be that stupid. He shakes his head and then gently pushes her off of him, moving into a sitting position. He opens his mouth and she scrambles herself right back into his lap and says, "Don't try to tell me what I'm feeling, Damon. I _know_ what I feel. I know that I love you. I've had a long time to think about it, and work it out, and—"

He puts one hand over her mouth and the other around the back of her neck so she can't jerk out of his grasp. "I'm sure that you believe whatever you've convinced yourself of, but—" She shakes her head ferociously and he can feel her trying to bite his palm. "But!" he says loudly. "You've been through so much, and you know if Stefan came back tomorrow, you would be ashamed that this ever happened and—" He stops talking because of the tears that appear in her eyes. He lowers his hands slowly and says, "See? See, I'm right, I'm just—"

Her arms circle his neck and her mouth covers his and he tries to resist her, because he's in the middle of something really important. It's something that he needs her to face so that he can also keep it in focus, so he can just enjoy these stolen moments with her and then remember what's important when things have to go back to normal.

(He doesn't need to remember her saying shit like this. It's enough to pretend she loves him for a little bit, she doesn't need to ruin things by actually _saying_ it.)

She ends the kiss and leans her forehead against his, her fingers combing through the hair resting over his ears. "It's impossible for you to accept, I know, because you've loved Katherine for so long, but normal people don't do that. They don't keep loving someone who left them, who they only spent a brief part of their life with, who they probably weren't going to be with forever, anyway." She lifts her head and looks into his eyes again. "They love the person in front of them who has given them so much, who has been there, who has loved them and—"

"Who killed their brother? Got their aunt killed? Fed them vampire blood against their will? Got their _real_ boyfriend wrapped up with a maniac who has this weird hold over him?" His words get angrier with each utterance, and he finally pushes her off of him and gets up from the bed. He knows it's over now—this break with reality—and it's much shorter-lived than he hoped it would be.

"Damon!" Elena shouts as he jerks open the bedroom door and walks out into the living room. All their clothes lay in a direct path from the outside door to his feet; Elena's lace panties are the first thing he sees as he's about to lean down and grab his own boxers, which are just a few inches further away.

He's naked, and it's late, but not so late that Lydia isn't sitting on the sofa in the living room with her laptop on her lap. Her head jerks around when he comes barreling out of Elena's room.

"Oh. My. God," Lydia says and either she can't or doesn't want to look away. She totally checks him out, which sort of takes the fire out from under him, and it gets even better when Elena comes running out behind him, dragging the bed sheet with her, wrapping herself up as she goes. She steps in front of him, blocking Lydia's view (he sees disappointment on the girl's face) but then he has to focus his attention on the half-naked girl directly in front of him.

"You're not leaving, we're not done talking about this," Elena says and she body-blocks him, trying to push him back into her room.

"Y'all are _already_ fighting?" Lydia asks. "I thought you'd at least have a honeymoon phase!"

Damon can't help it, he starts laughing because, god; this girl! Where did Elena find her? "How much does she know?" he asks because Elena's face is threatening to crack under the humor, too.

Lydia speaks before Elena can say anything. "I don't know anything, really, because Elena is so mysterious about everything, but I do know she's crazy in love with you because she talks about you all the fucking time. Drives me nuts, actually. Damon this, Damon that, blah, blah, blah. But then I met you earlier and I thought, _oh_. I mean, dude, look at you? You're like the most beautiful man I've ever seen. No wonder she puts up with your shit—that's the little she's told me. You've been kind of shitty to her, but then you've also been really great. And you _are_ sorta obsessed with your brother, but hey, everyone has their thing they need to see Freud about, you know?"

Elena bursts into giggles and before he knows it, she's resting her head against his chest and shaking it back and forth like she's embarrassed. He doesn't know how this has happened to him, how he ended up in a Woody Allen comedy where a crazy girl succinctly puts all his damage into a monologue that makes it seem...not that bad somehow?

He has no fucking clue how this is his life.

His hands end up on Elena's bare shoulders and she tips her head back as she stops laughing. "Do you believe me now?" she asks.

Maybe it's because his own eyes are so crystalline, but he's always, always, always gone weak in the knees for brown eyes. Elena's eyes—so similar to Katherine's obviously, but really so, so, _so_ different—have this way of making his heart literally feel like nacho cheese in his chest.

(He is so whipped, in other words.)

"I love you," she whispers, pushing herself up on her tiptoes so her mouth can brush over his, which reminds him that he's naked and they have an audience. It's the sweetest of kisses, but it's far from innocent because his bodily reaction to it is sudden and powerful. "I love _you_ ," she breathes against his lips.

He does believe her.

He _does_.

Fuck him eighty ways until the end of time; this is not going to go at all how he planned.

 

 

It's sometime on Sunday afternoon that he finally calls Alaric to tell him he's going to stay in Durham for a while.

"What?" Ric asks, suspicion in his voice. "How long?"

"Till Thanksgiving. I'll bring Elena home then so you and Jer don't have to come get her."

"You're going to stay in North Carolina for two weeks?" Now, suspicion has been replaced by incredulity.

"Yup."

"This is you calling to tell me that you're sleeping with my pseudo daughter because you think I won't get you drunk and kick your ass when you get home? I never took you for such a yella-belly," Ric says.

Damon's alone in Elena's room while she's taking a shower so they can go out to dinner ( _Let's go on a real date, Damon, please!_ ). The privacy allows him to be a little vulnerable to an empty room and his new iPhone. "She says she loves me, Ric."

There's a long, quiet pause. "Well, yeah."

"You knew?" Damon demands, feeling slightly betrayed (but not in the he-wants-to-rip-Ric's-heart-out way).

"I suspected. She had that mopey thing going on sometimes. I thought it was about Stefan but Jeremy was convinced it was about you. I guess he wins that twenty bucks."

"Fuck you, quit betting on my love life!"

"Hey, I never thought you'd have a real love life. You're a mess. Who'd put up with you?"

Damon can't argue that point because he sort of agrees with it. "I guess Elena will."

"Are you freaking out?"

"Little bit. But you know, sex does wonders for nerves. So, I'm dealing."

"You are such a dick."

"I know, right?" Damon laughs because the wheel of fortune has finally spun his way. All he can do is go with it.

"Okay, well, I have to give you the if-you-hurt-my-daughter... speech, you know."

"She's not really your daughter, you know."

"I'm all she's got, though, and I'm serious, Damon. I'll stake you in your sleep."

There's a thread of humor still there, but Damon knows it's not entirely false, what Ric's saying—what Ric _means_. "I'll treat her like gold."

It's a promise for all of them.

 

 

Elena eventually realizes the folly of her error in inviting him to stay indefinitely, because every time she's trying to work on something, he pulls her panties off, or lays on top of her, or starts tonguing her ear until she's yanking his belt loose. When she groans into his neck one night, "I'm so going to end up on Academic Probation!" as she's spasming around him, he can't help the pride-induced smile that stretches his face.

He supposes this is what Lydia meant when she said _honeymoon phase_. Because he literally cannot get enough, and even though Elena is a good student with self-discipline, nobody would know it by the state of her homework, and the fact that she's missed more classes than she's been to in the last several days.

"If you love me, you'll go, for just a few hours, please," she begs as he rolls off of her.

Her eyes are pleading and her body is sweaty, and the problem is of course that he will never be satisfied. He could make her come all day long, and it would still not be enough for him. "I do need some blood," he says. She gives him a raised brow and he says, "There's a blood bank near here. I'll just go get a couple bags. No worries."

She props herself up on her elbow and asks, "So you really haven't killed anyone—not since that girl on Route 40?"

He shakes his head. "Really. It's because of your blood, too—you know how Tyler gave me his family journal? I've been studying it a lot, and then Ric got some information from that Vanessa girl—'member her? She tried to kill you? Anyway, the thought about doppelganger blood sealing in properties seems to be true, but it also tends to invite some sort of balance. So the best thing that could have ever happened to me was drinking your blood at the moment I did, because it sealed in the new qualities, but it also made it all much more manageable—vampire and werewolf. WolfVamp. WerePire. Whatever."

"You don't think that's just because you've embraced your humanity?" she asks, watching him very carefully.

He shrugs. "It could be a combination of things, I guess, but I like to believe it was your tasty blood that did it."

She grins. "I'm tasty?"

"Hmmm, _very_ tasty."

She puts a hand against his shoulder, fingers caressing lightly. "Would you be interested in tasting it again?" She drops her lashes over her eyes just as she says it, and he slowly reaches over to tip her chin up so that they're looking at each other.

"Don't offer something like that, Elena. Ever."

"But, I—"

"No, absolutely not. It's just better if we don't ever go there."

"You would never hurt me," she says emphatically.

He sits up, and reaches for his pants that are in a crumpled heap on the floor. "Right, because I've never hurt you before. Especially when I took your blood. I was half out of my mind, but that's one thing that's crystal clear about that night. You _were_ hurt, and _I_ hurt you."

"Damon—"

"No," he says, pulling his jeans on as he stands up from the bed. "I'm going to go, leave you be for a while so you can get some of your work done. I'll be back in a few hours."

He gets to the door, dragging his shirt on over his head as he opens it. "Damon?" she asks, and her tone is soft, stopping him. He looks back at her. "I love you," she says, as she's oft repeated for the last nine days.

" _I_ love _you_ ," he says with emphasis. What he doesn't say aloud, but hopes she hears anyway is, _and that's why I'll never take your blood_.

 

 

Thanksgiving is a quiet affair in and of itself. Ric, Jeremy, Damon, and Elena make a turkey, eat until they're almost sick and then lay around the living room sleeping and intermittently watching football. It's not until the next day, Friday, when Bonnie and Caroline come over to catch up with Elena that Damon has to leave because of their shrill demands for an explanation as to the state of his and Elena's relationship.

(It's okay that he bails because Elena had told him she would handle it, and besides Jer and Bonnie are on a break right now, so the boys end up going to The Grill to shoot pool.)

On Sunday evening, he and Elena are packing up her stuff to go back to Duke when she grabs him by the arms and says very seriously, "You can't stay in North Carolina with me. If you do, I'll flunk out of college. So no matter how much I want you talk me into it, please do not. Just take me home, make love to me, and then leave so that I can focus on my studies until finals. And then you can come back and get me and we'll have all of winter break to make up for the time apart."

He frowns at her. "I hate college," he mutters.

Her puppy-dog eyes do something insane to both his chest and his cock, because he ends up pinning her to the bed and saying, "I promise not make you flunk out," as he pulls her clothes off and goes down on her.

When she's panting his name and tugging violently on his hair, he knows the next three weeks are going to be the longest of his existence, ever.

It's remarkable really, that something he never really let himself entertain is happening to him so magically. Like, he's in a happy, stable relationship, with a girl who is so warm and affectionate with him that even while she's steeped in studying, she will still text him several times a day just to tell him she loves him, misses him, or both.

The biggest thing that comes out Thanksgiving break (besides Bonnie and Caroline's reluctant support of their relationship) is Elena extracting another, different promise from him that has nothing to do with school.

She gets him to promise her that he won't go hunting for Stefan anymore.

They're in his bed at the Boarding House, and he is basically a pile of goo that she can shape into whatever she wants because as much as he likes to make sure that she has just as many orgasms as he does, if she gives him a blowjob, he pretty much cannot function for at least an hour.

(He teased her that it must be a doppelganger thing, but really he thinks it's just his own weakness for the woman he loves being that generous with him. Oh, and Elena is like a blowjob champion. If they gave awards for that sort of thing, he would totally nominate her.)

So he's all limp beside her on the bed and she nibbles on the lobe as she breathes into his ear, "Make me a promise."

His response is a hand patting her bare ass and one eye squinching open. "Promise," she whispers again, and the air rushing over his already sensitive eardrum makes him shiver and say, "Anything you want."

(See? Totally whipped)

"Promise me you won't go looking for Stefan anymore."

She doesn't whisper the words all sexy-like into his ear, but says them completely seriously and without any apology. He turns his head and looks into her eyes and they argue for several long seconds without any words at all.

Finally, he agrees because he knows to go back out for Stefan is a futile, hopeless effort. (And because he'll do anything for Elena.)

It pains him to even consider that he'll never get his brother back, but it is foolish to keep risking his own life in the process. Especially when there's someone who would care if he died.

Who cares so much that she totally buttered him up to ask him the one thing he would give her anyway—his life, his _existence_. It's hers, if she wants it. All of it's hers, and she does seem to want it, and even though the thought often flummoxes him, it also makes it easier to choose a better path.

So after she's been back at school for more than a week, and he's just hanging out at the Boarding House because he has no Town Council duties (yes, Carol Lockwood left him in charge of everything even though the vampire attacks seem to have passed), he realizes he's going to have to learn how to exist without always having a project. It's a hard habit to break after plotting for 145 years on the Get Katherine Out of Tomb project, and then every successive emergency thing that popped up after that until Klaus left town with Stefan.

Rescuing Stefan From Klaus would have to wait until Stefan Wanted To Be Rescued From Klaus, and there was no telling if or when that would ever happen.

One night while they're hanging out, Alaric suggests they decorate the Boarding House for Christmas, and Damon just looks at him. "We're not gay, and we're not going to make the townspeople suspect that we are."

Ric is drinking some of Damon's favorite Scotch with his feet up on the coffee table in the Great Room while Damon flips through a catalog looking for gifts for Elena. He laughs and lifts his glass as if toasting Damon. "Now that would be funny, wouldn't it? You could throw them all off the vampire trail by being that guy who's a friend of Oprah's. What's his name? Nate something? Yeah. Him."

(Ric's a little drunk, Damon realizes.)

"When did you ever watch Oprah?" he asks.

"Oh, you know, sometimes, with Jenna. She recorded it every day. She really loved that show."

Damon can feel that twinge in his chest, the one he gets when he's with Ric sometimes. He knows it's because he loves the guy like a brother, and he wishes he were happier. He especially hates it when Ric talks about Jenna, but he also knows it's important to let him.

He gets a sudden idea. "You know what you should do, Alaric?" Ric's head bobbles a little, but he looks over at Damon interestedly. "You should call Andie Star. She would be a fun girl for you to take out sometime."

Ric's eyes narrow. "Are you trying to set me up?"

"It's time. It would be good for you."

"Fuck you," Ric mutters and he gets to his feet.

"Hey, come on—" but before they can really have it out, the front door opens and someone walks in, uninvited.

Damon knows it's not Elena, and not just because her hair is falling in curls around her shoulders; it's the expression on her face and the way she walks down the hall towards him, and it reminds him why he should sign his house back over to a living person ASAP.

"What do you want?" he asks, and Ric spins around to see who Damon's speaking to.

"We need to talk," Katherine announces.

 

 

Normally, Damon would just throw her out. He is so over any tie left between them, and despite her "saving his life" that one time, it can never in anyway even out all the other shit she did to him.

There's just no repaying him for what she put him through. Even if Damon believed in redemption, which he's not sure he does, because if the truth is told, he's really just waiting for the other shoe to drop with Elena. She loves him, sure, but there is a whole lot of free flowing water under that bridge that could still be burned, and he will never entirely believe it's not one tongue of flame away from going up in smoke.

Because he knows everything he's done, and it all leads right back to Katherine. Not that she's any more responsible for his actions than Stefan ever was, but he would not be here, he would not have done any of the things he's done, and there would be no _Damon and Elena_ if not for a chain of events that were set off in 1864. By Katherine. (And the scales of justice, good to bad, are never going to be even, no matter how much Elena loves him.)

And while he's certainly enjoying what it is right now, he doesn't really expect it to last. Dealing with Katherine isn't anything he wants to do either, but she's come there to talk about Stefan. Which is the one thing he has to listen to from her, because _it's Stefan_.

Ric stumbles into the kitchen to get some water and make some coffee, so Damon waves his arm to indicate to Katherine that she should follow them. "Feeling a little maudlin for the holidays?" she asks sarcastically and Damon turns on her, pinning her to a nearby wall as Ric disappears behind the swinging door.

With his hand around her throat, he breathes in her face, "Do not provoke him, or tease him, or hurt him in anyway, or I will drive a fucking chair leg through your heart. Isn't it enough that you got the woman he loves killed? Just say what you came here to say and then get the hell out!"

"Okay, okay!" she says as if she can't understand what his problem is. She gives him a good hard shove and then precedes him into the kitchen.

"I think Stefan's ready to come home," she says with no further ado.

Damon and Ric exchange glances and then Damon asks, "Why?"

"It's just little things, but his temperament has been changing lately, and I get the feeling he doesn't want to keep running with Klaus. So I've come to retrieve Elijah to finish Klaus off once and for all."

Damon gives her his best _what the fuck_ look and she elaborates. "Klaus killed Elijah before they left town, and Stefan knew where the body was, along with all the other Originals. He left them in a storage unit, here, in Mystic Falls. Stefan told me about the storage unit. It was casual, but he gave me enough information, when Klaus wasn't around, so that I could find it. I got the feeling Stefan thinks Elijah will be happy to put Klaus down now, since he'd know where the rest of his family is, and you know, he'd be pretty pissed about Klaus double-crossing him. Again. So." She arches her brows at Damon, who is still giving her his _I don't trust you_ face. "Look, it's good info, I promise." She smiles in such a way that Damon can't mistake her meaning when she adds, "I had Stefan in a vulnerable position when he told me. He was totally open and honest. I left, as I'm wont to do, and my intention is not to go back until I have Elijah, and you," she points at Damon, "with me. We can finally kill him for good, and bring Stefan home."

"Do you really think I'd ever believe you want to bring Stefan home?" Damon asks. "I can't help but think this is some grandiose plan to get _me_ killed once and for all, and possibly make Stefan your sex slave for eternity."

"If I wanted you dead, Damon, I'd have let the wolf bite do its job." She smiles sensually again and continues, "And, of course, I'd like Stefan to be my sex slave, but it has to be his choice. So I'll let him come home and figure out how _boring_ Elena is in comparison and then he'll choose me, and it will all work out the way it should."

Damon folds his arms over his chest and shakes his head just slightly at Ric who appears ready to say something. Unsure what he might add to the conversation being a tad drunk, Damon hopes he'll keep his trap shut. "I'm not going, not unless Stefan calls me and asks me to come."

Katherine's face grows tight. "He'll never do that."

"Well, then," Damon says, as if that's enough, shrugging carelessly, like it's not eating a hole in his stomach right this minute to think of actually being able to save his brother. He can't go, not until he talks to Elena about it, but he's not going to tell Katherine that.

"What the hell, Damon? You've been hunting him for the better part of a year, getting close so many times, nearly getting yourself killed more than once! Now? Now, you're just going to be all _it doesn't matter, Stefan needs to call me_. I'm confused. What's chang—" Her eyes snap back and forth between Damon and Alaric and then understanding comes over her expression. "Wait. Are you and Elena—did you _finally_ get the girl in Stefan's absence?" she asks, and then Alaric moves almost as quickly as Damon does, but he blocks any violent reaction Damon might have against her.

She laughs, her eyes flashing as Damon stares her down over Ric's shoulder. "I get it, I understand. You don't want him coming home and ruining your little fantasy world."

"You'd better shut up, if you want any help, Katherine," Ric says, and his voice is a point of calm in a room that has suddenly stirred up everything Damon fears and loves most.

"I'm not helping her," Damon spits.

"Only because you promised Elena that you wouldn't," Ric says quite lucidly, letting Damon know that even though the coffee's not ready yet, the situation has sobered him up quite nicely.

Ric pats Damon's shoulders to get him to back off, and then he turns around to face Katherine. "Elena comes home from school next week. When she gets here, we'll discuss it with her. Then we'll decide what we're going to do. You can go get Elijah and do whatever the hell you want on your own, and probably end up dead if any of us are lucky at all, _or_ you can wait until we've talked to Elena. Then we'll decide if anyone is going to go with you to help."

Katherine's eyes shift from Ric's face to Damon's and then she nods. "Fine. See what the Doppelganger thinks. If she approves your request for time off, maybe you can find your balls and come out to play with me."

Damon goes for her then, and no amount of Ric stepping between them could stop him even if he tried, which he does not. Slamming Katherine against the wall with every ounce of strength he has just causes her to give it right back until they end up on the floor with her on top of him. She smiles down at him, her hand clenched painfully around his throat. "Always older, always stronger," she sing-songs.

"Always alone," Damon says it so quietly that it's surprising how loudly it cracks between them. He remembers standing in this very room with Elena months ago as she got her heart broken by Stefan's break-up text. All the same as he stares up into the eyes of the woman who only superficially resembles the woman he's madly in love with in anyway, he says something he never knew himself capable of. "I'd give Elena up in a heartbeat if it kept Stefan away from you forever."

The triumph of overpowering him melts from her countenance and she stares at him without saying anything. This is what it's come to, and this is how it's changed. His loyalty should always have been with his brother, but he'd made the wrong choice all those years ago. He won't make that mistake again.

"You need to go," Ric says and Katherine stiffens, having forgotten the third party in the room.

After she leaves, Damon convinces Ric not to call Elena and tell her everything now. He just wants her to have a little bit more time of ignorant bliss.

(And maybe he wants to have a relationship with her for just a little bit longer.)

 

 

Ric and Jeremy end up going to get her because Damon has a Founder's Council Christmas Party to attend the same day she's finished with finals. He can't get out of it because while he's keeping Carol in the dark, Liz knows everything, and he's constantly trying to prove to her that he's trustworthy and truly her friend, and he can't bail on an event like this just to go get his girlfriend.

(Though, believe him, that's all he wants to do.)

When he gets home from the event, Elena is waiting for him, but she's in the tub in his bathroom and she looks exhausted, so he feels badly about the fact that he just wants to fuck her and that's the only thing he can think about.

The good thing is, even though she looks at him wanly, she reaches out for him immediately and he pulls her from the tub, soaking wet. Once he's as naked as she is, and they're rolling around on his bed, he loses any sort of ability to be subtle.

He missed her like crazy, and as soon as they climax, he's going to have to tell her the whole big thing about Stefan and somehow convince her to let him go. So he loses himself in the lines of her body, the curves of her breasts and hips, and he even has a moment where he thinks she's feels a little bigger in his palms, like she's put on some weight, which is ridiculous since it's only been three weeks since he last had her naked.

He's got one of her knees slung over his elbow, holding her open for him to stroke her deep and hard. She shudders under him, and he follows rather quickly, given the length of time they were apart. When he tries to move off of her, Elena's arms wrap around his neck tightly, and out of nowhere, she starts crying, crying so hard, he wonders if Ric spilled the beans on the drive back from Durham.

"What's the matter?" he asks softly, but she's clinging to him, and he can't move back to look into her face unless he dislodges her; he thinks that would upset her more, so he doesn't. Instead he rolls to his side, carrying her with him so she's resting against his chest. "Elena? Baby, what is it?"

She just shakes her head against his throat, and he's not sure if that means she doesn't know, or she can't speak, so he decides to just shut up and lie there. A few minutes go by and she continues to sniffle, but slowly, she seems to get control, and then she's just laying there, her face against his heart. Then her fingers skim over his abdomen lightly before settling firmly on his side. Her nails dig into his skin and she takes a deep breath. "I love you, Damon. So much. So much more than I ever thought I could love anyone. So much."

The hair on the back of his neck stands straight up. In the space of thirty seconds she just said the words _so much_ three times, and he's suddenly in the middle of it—this is when the edict comes down, whatever it is that she can't deal with, that she doesn't want to put up with for whatever reason, and he'll have no way around it, no argument against it.

(It will kill him to lose her, but then at least going after Stefan won't be a problem.)

"I love you, too," he says, running his hands over the tender skin of her back comfortingly. Following the wave of tension is one of total peace—he can do this, he can let her rip his heart out, and he can let her go without throwing a fit. He loves her that much. He can make it easy on her. "It's okay, Elena. Just say it. Just tell me."

She takes another shuddering breath and then she tips her head back so they can look at each other. The hand digging into his side moves up to caress his face, the tips of her fingers ghosting over his lips and cheek, touching the corner of his eye and then smoothing across his eyebrow before she places her whole palm against the side of his face. "I'm pregnant."


	5. Leviticus (The Law)

The third morning in a row that Elena wakes up nauseated and puking, she's hanging over the toilet when Lydia comes in behind her and says, "You aren't still trying to tell yourself it's the flu, right?"

That's how she first begins to suspect, but she feels too awful to actually panic about it until a little later that day, after her first final is over. She looks at a calendar, does the math, realizes she hasn't had her period, and then does the math again. (With studying for finals and finishing up projects and the like, she really hadn't noticed how late she was.) Then she goes to Google and searches early pregnancy symptoms, and _bam!_ she realizes she's a walking ad for the entire list. Her boobs have been super sore, which usually meant her period was going to start shortly, but it hadn't. She's been exhausted, but hello, she's so stressed with school, and catching up after her sixteen days of dalliance with Damon, it didn't seem so odd to be tired. But it's really the nausea when she first gets up and moving in the morning and the actual throwing up that finally makes her accept the obvious.

She's having a full-on panic attack when she sees Lydia again that evening. Her roommate gets home from work, sees how beside herself Elena is, and sits down next to her on the sofa to offer comfort. Elena ends up telling her everything that she's conveniently left out until now because this is _impossible._ Completely. Totally. Impossible.

 _(Vampires can't procreate...but we love to try.)_

She had unprotected sex with Stefan for almost six months because of that vampire attribute. She had sixteen days worth of unprotected sex with Damon, who is not just a vampire, but also a werewolf; and now apparently, she is pregnant. They'd done it multiple times a day—for _sixteen_ days. The only way she wouldn't be pregnant is if, you know, he couldn't get her that way.

So when she wraps her arms around her knees and starts rocking back and forth, the truth just spills from her lips; everything—Damon being a vampire, the Sacrifice, Klaus coming to town, Elijah telling her that his brother wanted to _sire_ his own race, Damon getting bit by Tyler, and then taking her blood, and turning Hybrid himself. "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod," she whispers into her knees while Lydia sits beside her with her arm around her shoulders.

It’s probably helpful that Elena is freaking out herself, because it calls for one of them to be calm; Lydia should be much more shocked by this tale of insanity, but she manages to succinctly sum it up. "That's the craziest fucking thing I've ever heard, but then, it explains a whole lot of the weirdness I picked up on between you guys, and Damon in general. He's just not...normal, you know? But I just figured he had a fucked up childhood, not that he's like _ancient_. Oh, my God!” she gasps, interrupting herself. “Elena! Are you going to have a demon baby, like Bella and Edward?"

Elena starts laughing then, because hysteria is the only emotion she can manage, and her tears appear to have dried up in the face of Lydia's legitimate, but completely ridiculous, question. She shakes her head and says, "Well, I don't know for sure, since I think I'm the first one to ever be pregnant this way, but it feels like all the normal pregnancy symptoms. Of course," she adds as an afterthought, giggling madly, "it's not like I can Google _Hybrid Pregnancy Symptoms_."

Looking very concerned, Lydia rubs her back soothingly, like that will make everything all right. Elena takes a deep breath. Then she states the real problem: "This is going to _freak_ Damon out."

 

 

Four days later, he's kissing her like he's missed her as much as she's missed him—but there's something more to it, too. She can feel urgency that's not just of the _I need to get off_ variety. In fact, she expects him to join their bodies as soon as he's disposed of his own clothes (his vampire speed is always more impressive when he's tearing off his shirt and getting out of his pants quicker than her eye can even see), but he pauses. His hands fondle her breasts carefully, his thumbs circling around her nipples exploratorily. Her teeth worry her bottom lip because she's extra sensitive, and a moan sounds deep in her throat. "Damon," she gasps. "Please," she urges, lifting her hips up against him, trapping his erection between their bellies. (Another pregnancy symptom? She feels like she wants him about a thousand times more than she did before, which is ridiculous because she wanted him very much before.) Now, her hands clutch at him clumsily and he grins into her mouth, running his tongue around and over hers, but never letting their lips seal together. In frustration she fights him for dominance, finally lodging his bottom lip between her teeth, which always seems to send him over the edge.

He slides an arm under her thigh, lifting her leg up and out so he can press himself into her. He feels bigger, filling her up in a way that's _more_ than it's ever been before. Elena closes her eyes, internally facing her biggest fear: that this is the last time they'll ever be like this, because when she tells him it will change everything.

Their urgency has nothing to do with their movements—if anything, she thinks he's trying to draw it out, to make it last longer; his strokes are deep and slow, but she's wound up, and it doesn't take much. She starts coming without any warning, and then he grunts, his mouth landing against her throat as he climaxes.

Along with the physical release, she's swamped by emotions that she can't control—fear, wonder, more fear—and tears pour down her face. Sobs erupt from her throat and Damon holds her tightly, murmuring to her and stroking her hair when she can't communicate what's wrong. She wraps her arms around him, the physical _need_ for him so much greater than the sexual pleasure he brings her. Everything is so delicate between them, so new, so _precious_ , and yet there is some aspect to it that makes her feel as if she's had him for so much longer—and it will be so much harder to go back to not having him if he doesn't take this baby news well.

She doesn't know how to tell him, other than to just say it—so she ends up declaring her love, almost overstating it, almost gushing to a point of ridiculousness, but Damon’s only response is to hold her closer and tell her that he loves her, too. Then he gives her more. "It's okay, Elena." His hand spreads out against her back, warm and strong, so secure that she sees an anchor in her mind, holding her steady, in the place she should be. Again and again, it's the shades of Damon that surprise her. "Just say it. Just tell me," he urges. Just when she thinks she can't love him more, she suddenly does—loves him _so_ much, she can't believe she ever thought she loved anyone else.

She looks into his face, lightly touching the features that have become so familiar to her they might as well be her own. She knows this will be the scariest thing that's ever happened to either of them, and the reality is, he might not be able to handle it.

(She might not be able to, either, especially if he doesn't support her decision.)

Cupping his cheek in her hand, she says, "I'm pregnant."

His expression goes blank, and she knows it's because he can't comprehend it. It makes no sense, it doesn't compute, there is no previous information about this particular subject for him to use as reference. He just looks like she struck his frontal lobe with a blunt object, wiping him of all understanding. "What?" he sputters, and sits up, the reaction happening in his body more quickly than his mind. She follows him, tries to grab his hands, but he shakes her off and all but roars, " _What?_ " and she suddenly realizes his first conclusion is not anything she even considered because she's the one who knows what Elijah said about Klaus.

"Damon, Damon..." He scoots away from her like she's become repulsive to him and she holds her hands up in a placating manner. "It's yours. It's your baby. You can make babies now. I swear to you, it's yours. Think about it. With all of the other changes that happened to your body when Tyler bit you—this is just more of that. _It's your baby,_ " she adds insistently, staring hard into his eyes.

He visibly relaxes, and she can see the puzzle pieces falling into place in his mind, though this understanding is quickly followed by a different kind of incomprehension. His face contorts again and he repeats "What?" but not in the accusatory way of seconds before.

When she reaches her hand out to him this time, she curls her fingers around his and he doesn't pull away, but he doesn't grasp back. He's still so dumbfounded, she has to fill in the silence or go stark raving mad. "I started to feel sick about a week ago. With all the stress of school, I didn't even notice, but then Lydia—well, of course, she knew first, just like she knew I loved you before I did, and I was freaking out, but then I had time to think about it, and I just—"

"Stop." That's all he says, just the one word, so quietly it's like a gunshot between them.

She's crying again (or maybe she never stopped?) and she blurts, "I've been wondering, all this time, about my purpose, and now—"

"I said, _stop_ ," and the blankness is different now, not incomprehension any longer, but something else. Something that makes her shrink back. "I have to go get Stefan," he announces and Elena feels like she's got whiplash; like he had to find a way to trump her big moment, and he totally had one up his sleeve for it. "Katherine came back, and she has a plan, she's going to find Elijah, and we're going to go get Stefan. Bring him home, finally. He wants it."

Now it's Elena's turn to say, "What?" She shakes her head, trying to find the most important part of those few sentences... _Katherine...Elijah...Stefan_. "Did he call you?" With one sharp, negative head shake, he's off the bed, bending over to pick up his boxer briefs and dress slacks from the floor. "How do you know he wants to come home, then? You're going to take _Katherine's_ word for it? What if it's a trap?"

"It's not a trap."

"How do you know that?"

He turns away from her. "I just do, okay, Elena?"

He gets dressed, which in and of itself would be enough for her to know something has gone terribly awry. Once Damon is naked, generally the only way to get him dressed again is for her to insist that she needs food to be able to keep functioning. She pulls the bed sheet around her shoulders, shivering from a chill that has nothing to do with the drafty house. "So you're going to break your promise to me." It's not a question, and she doesn't know why she's surprised. Stefan chose Damon over her; it stands to reason when faced with the same choice Damon would follow suit.

(She just can't believe she really thought she was what mattered most to him.)

(She can't believe she just told him she's pregnant, and his only reaction is to run away.)

(Actually, yes she can.)

"He's my brother," he states, like he has a thousand times before, when it serves his purpose.

"Right," she snorts, scooting off the bed on the far side, away from him. "I'm just the mother of your child. A child you should never have been able to father. A child I suppose you would never have wanted, unless maybe Katherine could have been its mother."

She's not looking at him when she says that, and she's not even sure where it comes from, only that it's been an underlying fear all along. One day, Katherine would come calling, would remind him that she loved him, and Stefan, and they would all go be vampires together.

It had been a small fear, one that she had written in her diary not long after Stefan's departure, before she even knew that Katherine had been running around with him. (Before she knew she loved Damon.) Her fear then had just been Damon leaving like Stefan had, and a realization that she didn't know if she could survive that. All she could see was her own likeness, hair curled perfectly, toes pointed with precision as she walked away. _(It's okay to love them both. I did.)_

She imagined Damon's seeming indifference would melt away with time, and it would finally occur to him that what he'd always wanted was still there, still possible.

Katherine Pierce. Katerina Petrova. She, who came first.

Elena should never have worried about Katherine directly; only Stefan, and Katherine using the younger Salvatore to lure the older.

He takes a breath at her declaration; it's the sound she's heard many a vampire make when wood enters their body, a pain-filled gasp that ends in an almost-groan. She glances over at him, but he's not looking at her. "You know that's not true," he says, and the lack of fire in his response more than breaks her heart. It makes her feel like she'll never walk upright again—she'll just be hunched over the ache in her middle, protectively guarding the last feeling she'll ever let Damon Salvatore evoke in her.

(She knew if it ever ended, it would end badly, but she had no idea it would be this awful.)

She leaves Damon’s bedroom and goes into Stefan's to find clothes to put on to go home in. The ones she'd been wearing when she arrived at the Boarding House are on Damon's bathroom floor, but she can't be in the same room with him anymore.

For so long she refused to come back here—Stefan’s room had been a non-place in the house to her; even when they'd done their _clean out the crap_ project the previous summer, Damon had been the one to come in this room and grab old boxes of stuff that needed to be sorted. Now, she stands in the middle of it, remembering how she shared it with one stranger but she longs for another one in another room—another stranger, another person who could disappoint her so shockingly. Was it possible to know people and never really grasp anything about them? It's happened to her twice in a matter of a year, and she's not sure she can endure it again.

Minutes later, as she climbs into her car (always hoping, thinking possibly Damon won't let her get that far), she realizes Stefan's room is the only safe place left there; it’s the one place she might find free of Damon in some strange way.

It doesn’t matter; she'll never go back.

 

 

Two days before Christmas, Alaric comes in her room. She's laying on the bed, practically comatose, a glass of water and package of saltine crackers on the bedside table.

He sits on the end of the bed and wraps his hand around one of her ankles beneath the afghan she's got thrown over herself. She stirs, opening an eye to look at him. "What?" she asks.

"Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on? I just got back from the Boarding House, and Damon's on a bender. I mean—I've never seen so many empty alcohol bottles that have been drained by one person. And he was fairly incomprehensible, rambling on about Stefan and a baby and Katherine and _the way it should be_ and none of it made any sense to me."

Elena rubs her eyes and looks up at the ceiling. "You know about the rescue mission to get Stefan, don't you?" she asks, certain that Ric's playing dumb on some level.

"Well, yeah, but that was all pending on how you felt about it. I assumed you'd veto Damon going, and he'd defer to you because he's incapable of not deferring to you, and then he'd send me, or Caroline, or Bonnie with Katherine and Elijah, to see if it was even possible to get Stefan to come home."

"He didn't give me any options, he just told me he's going. Didn't want to discuss it, just wanted to do it."

Alaric watches her silently for a moment, and when she doesn’t elaborate, he says, "So you fought, okay, that helps a little. But, seriously, Elena, he's falling apart over there, and I—"

"Alaric, I'm pregnant." That shuts him up. (It seems to be the two words in the English language that silences the entire male population.)

He just stares at her, and then his eyes move down her body to the stomach he can't see because she's under a blanket, but it's comical how his expression seems to indicate that he thinks he should be able to tell. He finally says, "But I thought vampires couldn't..."

"Apparently Hybrids can." Ric nods once, like that's totally obvious.

(None of it's obvious. What she's going to do, how she feels about this, what happens next.)

He clears his throat and his hand squeezes her ankle. "Well, it all makes a lot more sense now. Fuck," he breathes out, looking away. She can't even summon a laugh at his lack of advice or comfort. She can hear Damon in her head, though she'd like to shut him up permanently: _we're all screwed._ She closes her eyes, wishing she could just go to sleep and wake up to a different reality, one where her biggest problem is that she's in love with her missing ex-boyfriend's brother. Oh, those were the good ol' days, weren't they?

“He’s just drinking?” she asks. “Not feeding?”

She can feel Ric’s stillness, but she’s afraid to look at his face as she waits for an answer. “No,” he says slowly. “He doesn’t do that anymore. I mean, he's freaking out, sure, but he’s not—no. He doesn’t do that, and I actually think it’s not even his first line of defense anymore, if that makes you feel better.” He shakes her leg gently and Elena opens her eyes again. "And what about you? You’re mad at him for leaving? Did you guys break up?"

Elena shrugs. "He didn't have one word to say to me about the baby. I told him I was pregnant and he told me he was going to get Stefan; that was the extent of the conversation. I left because I didn't know what else to do. He doesn't want it. I mean, I knew he wouldn't, but I thought he might...at least _try_."

Ric's expression changes rapidly, a laundry list of fatherly concern erupting over his face. He just says, "Whatever you decide to do, I'll support you, Elena. I'll take you to the clinic if you want, or we—"

"What?" she says, finally springing into a sitting position. She knocks his hand away from her leg. "I'm not having an abortion, Ric! This is mine and Damon's _child!_ This is _my_ child. This is a child that shouldn't even be possible and you—"

He reaches out and grabs her by the shoulders, interrupting her with, "You didn't let me finish, which was—or we can have a baby. You know Jeremy and I would be there for you, to support you and make sure you have everything you need." He rubs his hands up and down her arms. "Whatever you decide, I'm behind you, one hundred percent."

Sudden tears sting her eyes, and Elena feels a swell of gratitude that she can't contain. "I want to keep it. I mean, I do wish that I wasn't going to be having a baby when I'm 19, but if there's anything I know it's that you don't get to choose everything in life. But this, this is _something_ ; something impossible. There should be no more Salvatores."

It comes over her in a wave, the things she'd concluded in North Carolina but hadn't been allowed to share with Damon. _Her purpose._ Why her parents died (both sets), but she still lived? All those other things that she thought might be the answers paled in comparison to a baby that should never have been possible.

Ric takes her in his arms, hugging her to his chest, and she finally lets everything she's been feeling for over a week rush out of her. She'd still been in Durham when it dawned on her—with or without Damon she was having a baby. For her, there simply was no other choice.

Jeremy comes in the room a moment later because he can hear Ric and Elena laughing and crying at the same time. When she tells him he's going to be an uncle, his forehead creases for a moment and then he says, "Sweet!"

That's just what Elena thinks, when she gets past the panic and right down to it.

 

 

The next night, they exchange gifts, sitting around the fake Christmas tree Jeremy and Bonnie had put up before she came home from college. Traditionally, in the Gilbert house, they opened gifts on Christmas Eve, and the big meal was saved for Christmas Day. Ric has deferred to the traditions, and Bonnie has joined in as she and Jeremy are back together again. (Elena can't keep up with all of it, and Jeremy's tired of talking about it, so they don't. Bonnie will tell her what she needs to know.)

Elena wasn't feeling up to cooking, considering most smells made her even more nauseated than normal, so Bonnie had volunteered to help the boys do it. They brined a turkey and had it soaking in its own juices in the refrigerator overnight, and as she goes to bed that night, Elena begins to think maybe she can survive this, just like she has everything else.

She and Damon have been apart for four days now, without a word, text, or phone call between them. She doesn't know what the plan is, if he's leaving immediately (or has already left) to go get Stefan, and she realizes she can't know. It's just like when Stefan left to begin with: the only way she is going to get through it is to not let herself think about it, or take responsibility for it.

And now, it's even more important that she believe her own press, because she has to decide what she's going to do as a pregnant college student. She's brushing her teeth when the thought crosses her mind: will the Chi Omegas still let her join the sorority, as an unwed mother? It's not the 1950s, of course, but it's still not exactly what you want your poster girl to be.

She crawls into bed, burrowing under her covers. If she can't be in the sorority, it will probably be better for her anyway. It's not like she can drink anymore, or have any kind of social life anyway—who would date a pregnant girl? For some reason it's that thought that puts her over the edge and the tears she's kept at bay since she left the Boarding House pour down her face. She clings to her pillow and stuffed bear like they can make the ache in her chest go away.

(She doesn’t want to date anyone. She only wants him.)

Nothing will make it better; she doesn't even need to write that in her journal to know her heart is irreparably broken. All she wants is Damon; she _needs_ him, and he's not here.

And, what's worse is that he doesn't want to be.

 

 

She awakes with a start, unsure of what broke into her dreams. It's still dark in her room, which means it's not yet morning, but it seems as though she's been asleep for a while.

Then she freezes, because she can feel him, lying behind her on the bed, his body pressed against hers. His fingers clench on her hip and his voice is soft and soothing, "It's just me." The words come on a gentle breath that stirs the hair around her ear, and then his lips press lightly behind it; the soft rasp of his facial hair against the tender skin causes a shudder to run down her spine.

She squeezes her eyes shut, trying not to be distracted by a split-second moment of insanity about the fact that Damon hasn't shaved and that she's never seen him like that before. (It does help to remember that the reason she's 18 and pregnant is because she's horribly attracted to and in love with this man who has snuck into her room in the middle of the night.) So, she asks the obvious, "What are you doing here?"

It doesn't come out nicely at all, and she feels a little proud of herself. (Of course, tears have resumed falling from her eyes already, so it's not like she's presenting a totally put-together persona. She knows he’ll be able to feel every little sob that shakes her chest.)

"I wanted to be with my family on Christmas," he says, and she thinks he's got a lot of gall, except for the complete sincerity in his voice. His breath is a bit whiskey-soaked, but he's not as drunk as the night he killed Jeremy; she can already tell that he has a lot more control than he did then. (Hybrid-doppelganger blood mix, or humanity-embraced vampire? She doesn't know. Probably, neither does he.)

He does this, though; unnerves her in the worst ways, at the worst moments, making her utterly aware of just how much she loves him, and how much _he_ needs _her_ , even if he can't say it in a clear-cut way. _(I know you love Stefan, that it will always be Stefan. But I love you.)_ She's known it for far longer than she's wanted to, and it would actually make life so much easier if she didn't know. She wouldn't feel the need to take care of him, to worry about how he's dealing with the stress of an unplanned (and improbable) pregnancy when she should really just focus on her own needs, because she's the one who can never walk away.

( _Would_ never walk away.)

Then his hand curves around her hip and slides down, coming to rest over her stomach. Half of his palm is directly on her skin, the other covering her pajama shorts waistband. "Damon—" she starts and he shushes her, his breath in her ear making her tremble. She grabs at his hand anyway, trying to push him away, but of course she can't because she can never overpower him or make him do anything he doesn't want to do.

 _(I assumed you'd veto Damon going, and he'd defer to you because he's incapable of not deferring to you.)_

Ric's voice in her head reminds her: this is about so much more than just him going after Stefan, but the fact that he's still in Mystic Falls does mean something. Maybe Ric's right, maybe her power over Damon is real and not limited to promises made after sexual favors have been exchanged.

All the same, she can't do this: she can't go through it over and over. Now is the moment. So she tells him. "I can't. You _can't_. If you're here now, it's because you're _here_ , with me. If you can't handle it, fine, but it's all or nothing, Damon. You choose me and the baby, right now, and promise to never walk away, or you leave, and you never come back. I _can't_ ," she says again, tightening her hand around his. She can't move it, but she still squeezes it with all of her strength while tears seep down her cheeks.

When the sobs erupt from her mouth, he buries his face in the hair covering her neck. He hugs her tight, whispering things she can't really understand, and she's not sure if he's agreeing to her terms or saying goodbye; she's about to start screaming when he presses his lips directly over her ear. "I'm sorry, baby," he says. "I'm so, so, so sorry." Then words start spilling rapidly from his lips, things she could only hope he would ever tell her. (This is when she knows he's just the right amount of drunk.) "Ric told me you think I don't want it, but that's not true. I want it, Elena, more than I want anything. More. _More._ You don't get it, you don't know, you're so young—" the way his voice caresses the last word makes it almost the loveliest thing he's ever called her, not a reminder of the difference between them. "When I was human, the only things there were in plantation life were tobacco crops and children. I was to inherit my father's estate, being the eldest son, and it was up to me to find a proper southern lady to make my bride, to carry my children; someone who was healthy and strong, who could endure the hardship that came with plantation life. It wasn't easy, not even for gentlemen and ladies, though, obviously, it was much easier on us than it was on the servants. _The slaves._ Oh, god," he mutters, gripping her harder, pressing in tighter against her.

He switches gears so quickly, it takes her a moment to follow him. “This should never have happened, you know,” he says, and laughter follows right after the words, but it’s not funny, not in the slightest. “You and me, it’s not real, and now here we are, in the most _real_ situation we could ever be in, and I’m the only option, and you must be aware that there are so many others who would be what you need them to be, but all you’ve got is me, and—“

She turns in his arms because she can’t bear any more. _This_ is not what she thinks, it’s only what _he_ thinks she thinks and he couldn’t be more wrong, and she doesn’t know how he’s come to these awful conclusions.

In a moment when he’s a fountain of words, it's ironic that the only thing she can think of to prove them wrong is to place her mouth over his. She climbs on top of him, easily pushing him onto his back, and her fingers start wresting with his shirt buttons until his own hands slip between them to assist. She feels her way up to his face, her fingertips dragging through several days worth of stubble on his chin and cheeks that she knows will tear her own face up if she keeps kissing him, but she doesn’t care. All she cares about is making him believe that she would want him to be the father of her child in any circumstance, planned or otherwise.

Between kisses and caresses, she whispers her truths to him.

 _I lived when my parents died for a reason._

His hands abandon his shirt's buttons when most of them are undone to slide down between them and yank open his pants. She hitches her hips up and he snags his forefingers into the sides of her shorts and underwear, pushing them both down her legs.

 _I thought it was to save your life, to save all of you, to be the Doppelganger, but it wasn’t. It was to have this baby._

She kisses him deeply as each of his hands open over her upper legs, pulling them apart so she's straddling him. She feels him hot and hard at the juncture of her thighs, but his fingers are there first, readying her, sliding teasingly over her clitoris and rubbing gently at her opening until she’s gasping and pressing herself into him.

 _I need you, Damon. YOU. And you have to know it._

He whimpers as he replaces his fingers with his cock and she moans into his neck as he enters her. His hands move around to cup her buttocks and he guides her up and down until they’re both panting desperately. "Oh, God, Elena," he mutters, bucking up underneath her, his fingers clenching at the delicate skin of her hips. He jerks her into him, hard, and they both inhale sharply when the sensations peak simultaneously.

 _I love you, more than any words can convey._

She kisses her way up his throat, dragging her tongue over the prickly hair at his chin until their lips mesh again as she rocks over him. _So close, so close_ …she can feel the heat expanding inside her. She wishes the room wasn’t so dark, wishes she could look into his eyes as she lifts her head to say in a low but firm voice, “This was meant to be.”

He groans, a needy but pithy sound, and then he shudders beneath her, and she knows he found something intangible because his arms clamp around her tightly. When she says softly, “It’s supposed to be us, me and you, forever,” he buries his face in her throat and she can feel the wetness of his tears against her skin.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” he repeats again and again, and she thinks maybe it’s a distraction tool, but she lets him have it. It’s so hard for him, not just to feel it all himself, but to accept her feelings in return, and she’s never been able to put herself first in the face of such need.

Her necessities always seem to be fulfilled, one way or another, and she feels slightly ashamed for having dialed into Damon’s reaction so wrongly. Her own fears had made it impossible to see at first, but now she understands.

And now, she doesn’t have to clasp him so tightly. She can let him go, to do what he needs to do.

As he relaxes under her, she smoothes her fingers into his hair, caressing his scalp lightly. Pressing her mouth against his bottom lip, she sucks on it delicately before saying, “You should go get Stefan.”

He doesn't say anything, but his hands slide up her back, under the camisole that he never quite managed to remove. She lays her head on his chest and says, "We'll be okay. You go, and get him. Bring him home, and we'll go from there."

His fingers flex against her ribs and she feels him shake his head. "That's not gonna happen."

"Why not?" she murmurs, feeling very sleepy. She’ll probably fade out before she can hear his reasoning, but they can talk about it all later.

"Because I just found out from Elijah that Klaus is going to be gunning for you, and our baby."

 

 

At 6am on Christmas morning, Bonnie, Caroline, Alaric, Jeremy, Damon, and Elena all gather around the Gilbert dining table. They aren't eating some kind of crazy Christmas-themed breakfast, and none of them are smiling as Damon explains what he learned from the Original who once betrayed their trust, that they are now forced to take at his word again, because, well, that's just the way the cookie crumbles for all of them.

Damon wanted to invite Katherine to the pow-wow, just for the sake of solidarity, but Elena used her veto power on that one. (It hadn’t been hard, because he really didn’t want her there either, much to Elena’s relief.) If she's going to be unable to sleep because of this horrifying news, feeling sick to her stomach not just because she's pregnant, but also because this is the cycle of her life, always and forever, she will have one thing her way; and that is to not have Katherine anywhere near her.

"So, here's the deal—Elijah has always known Klaus's plan to build his own race of Hybrids. This was the main reason he wished to kill his brother, but of course, we all know how that went down." Damon smirks to his audience and Bonnie delivers a death glare worthy of a witch who had been willing to lay down her own life to prevent any such thing from happening. "So ever since he left Mystic Falls with Stefan, his plan has been to find some breeding partners and get to work on his master plan. According to Katherine, none of the women he's taken up with have turned up pregnant. At first, he was too busy raping and pillaging to be too bothered by it, but as the months wore on, he started to get frustrated, as one might imagine.

"Enter me. I was bit, as you all know, by our pet dog, Tyler Lockwood. Because of the...nature of the delusions involved in that process, I bit Elena. Elena's blood, being Doppelganger blood, did something fancy to my body, causing me to become a Hybrid, like Klaus."

"Damon, we know all this already. What’s the point?" Bonnie asks. She sounds tired, and Elena reaches out to grasp Damon's hand when she sees his jaw tighten in irritation.

"He's getting to the point, Bonnie," she says, giving her friend a _please, be patient_ look.

"The point," Damon enunciates the 'T' with precision, "is that Elena is pregnant." His hand clenches around hers almost spasmodically, and she laces her fingers through his. They're standing together at the head of the table, and Elena's eyes are trained on Bonnie's face, though it's Caroline who gasps out a swear word in surprise. Bonnie says nothing, but her eyes move back and forth between Elena's face and Damon's.

"The other point, _Bonnie_ ," Damon says, narrowing his eyes at Elena's oldest friend, "is that apparently _only_ a Doppelganger can carry a Hybrid baby, according to Elijah—something he once suspected, but never knew for sure until Katherine presented him with the information about Klaus’s failures. Luckily, this is information he made sure to never tell his nasty brother, but who knows how long we've got until he figures it out; and since the Doppelganger isn’t dead...” He doesn’t finish the thought, but Elena can see it on all their faces that they understand where it leads. “So, now, it's not just imperative that we off Klaus to get my blood junkie of a brother back, but we have to kill him to protect Elena, and the baby."

The room is silent for a long moment, and Elena can feel the tension radiating from Damon; the strength in his body coiled for the moment, but likely to unfurl suddenly, especially if someone pisses him off. She tightens her hand around his and then wraps her other one around his upper arm, holding on to him, trying to ground him physically and emotionally.

Alaric disrupts the quiet by stating, “Katherine and Elijah are going to go and attempt to kill Klaus, for good, and bring Stefan home.” Damon nods in response.

“How do we know Elijah won’t change his mind again?” Bonnie asks, looking at Alaric.

“Because Elijah now knows where all of his family is—Katherine got him out of storage, and he’s going to get the rest of his family out. He thinks he’ll be able to get them all on-board to do away with the Prodigal.” Damon answers for Ric, who doesn’t have any knowledge of what Katherine and Elijah shared with him before he came to Elena only a couple hours before.

“Is it really smart to unleash all the Originals?” Caroline asks. “I mean, what kind of people are they?”

“They’re centuries-old vampires, who’ll want the debt paid against their confinement. I’d guess they’ll be pissed,” Damon answers.

Bonnie snorts. “In other words, you have no idea.”

“Bonnie,” Jeremy says, turning towards his girlfriend. “Can we just solve the problem, not antagonize Damon?”

Elena feels the ricochet of surprise through Damon’s body at her brother’s words, and she holds on to him more tightly as she says, “I’m going with Damon later, to talk to Elijah. We wanted to tell you, because it affects all of you and because you’ve been with us through all of this. If you don’t want any part in it, we understand— _we understand_ —“ she emphasizes when Damon’s mouth opens, and she’s sure he’s going to try to shame them all into helping. She puts her hand over his mouth and continues. “We just wanted you to know, so you could make the choice for yourself.”

“Is anyone planning on finally killing Katherine in all this? Because, if not, I’d like _that_ job.” Everyone turns to look at Caroline as she crosses her arms over her chest. “What? I still owe her. And besides, I’m pissed about Stefan. He’s been out there for ten months, you guys. We need to get him back.”

Damon’s fingers encircle Elena’s wrist, pulling her hand away from his face. “So, Vampire Barbie’s in?”

Caroline's eyes meet Damon’s squarely and she nods her head. “Hell, yeah.”

“Wait,” Bonnie puts her hand up. “Who is going to stay and make sure Elena’s safe?”

In the past, this would be the moment where Elena rolled her eyes and stomped her foot about her rights and privileges and how she was sick and tired of them all going to bat for her.

But today it’s entirely different; both her reaction, and the answer to Bonnie’s question.

“I’m going to stay with her,” Damon says.

It’s amusing, really, watching all of their reactions. Alaric smothers a smile beneath his hand and his eyes glance off Elena’s before he looks innocently up at the ceiling. Jeremy nods his head like that’s the only acceptable answer. Caroline sits up straighter, looking around like maybe she heard him wrong. Bonnie slowly stands up, and it’s this gesture that Elena thinks she will never recover from: her small but fierce best friend says, “You’re damn right you are.” Damon’s head tips in silent challenge, and then Bonnie takes it further. “Nobody outside this room can know about the baby until Klaus is dead.”

“Well, Elijah and Katherine already know,” Damon says. “So nobody besides them, and us.”

Elena tugs on his hand. “Lydia knows.”

“Lydia?” Bonnie asks.

“My roommate, at Duke.”

“Elena will have to go to a doctor, too,” Alaric pipes up.

“Damon can go with her and compel the doctor and anyone else at the place not to tell anyone,” Caroline suggests.

“I can compel Lydia, too,” Damon says.

“You’re not compelling Lydia!”

“Elena—“ He turns towards her, smirk firmly in place.

“You’re not, but we’ll argue about that later,” she says, huffily dragging her hand out of his to show her displeasure.

Ric stands up, and all the attention shifts to him for a moment. “So, Damon will be with Elena here or at Duke—because that’s the most important thing, that she go on with school and life as though absolutely nothing has changed—and Caroline and I will go with Elijah and Katherine.”

“Ric, I don’t know if—“ Damon starts, but Ric lifts his hand, showing Damon the ring Elena gave back to him not long after John passed away.

“I’m going,” Ric states, and Damon doesn’t argue it further.

Jeremy opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, Damon directs, “Then Jeremy and Bonnie will stay here, and be on top of everything in Mystic Falls, since I won’t be here.” Elena watches while her boyfriend looks into her little brother’s eyes, and if she didn’t know better she might think he was compelling Jeremy. “I need you, here, man, in case anything happens. We need a sentinel.”

Jeremy clenches his teeth, but then he nods, as if he understands. “I’ll do it, whatever you need.”

“Good,” Damon says with another authoritative nod. “It’s decided. Caroline and Ric, come to the Boarding House tonight; Elijah will be there with his plan, and possibly a few other Originals for us to meet.”

Elena has the irreverent thought pass through her head that she really wants to say _Merry Christmas!_ to lighten the mood, but she refrains. Damon wraps his arms around her, hugging her while their friends and family watch. She just closes her eyes and presses her face against his chest.

Whatever happens now, her job is to protect their child. She finds that of all the things she never asked for that happened to her anyway, this is the one she can most look forward to. Her mother told her once that there is nothing like holding your child for the first time in your arms. Elena already has a vivid fantasy of that moment for herself, and she isn’t going to let Klaus take that from her. It will only happen because of the people in this room; she feels so blessed to have such good friends who will step up to help in a situation like this. She pulls away from Damon and looks at each of them. “I love you guys,” she says. “So much. Thank you. Thank you for helping me, for helping _us_.”

Tears shimmer in Bonnie’s eyes and Caroline states the obvious. “What else would we do?”


	6. The Gospel According to St. Stefan

Damon is very drunk when Katherine shows up at the Boarding House late on Christmas Eve. He hasn't seen Elena since she took off and he did nothing to stop her days earlier, and he's not sure that he wants to see her again.

(Well, obviously, he wants to _see_ her forever, but he's totally not equipped to be anyone's father, much less be the father of _Elena Gilbert's_ baby. It's all the biggest fuck up he's ever been privy to in his 168 years on the planet, and considering all he's seen—all he's done himself even—that's saying something.)

He's never been in a lower place (below rock bottom, if he has to specify) when she saunters in, Elijah trailing behind her, both of them looking around at the empties all over the room with vague interest.

"What happened here?" Elijah asks, and his eyes meet Damon's as though he has empathy even though he doesn't know the reason for all the debauchery. (Like he was just back from a trip out of town, not from months—almost a year—in Original storage.)

"You look like shit," Katherine pronounces, looking down at him.

That had been Ric's assessment when he'd been by earlier with a fatherly lecture. He'd come to ream Damon for being a deadbeat dad first rattle out of the box, and when Damon hadn't argued or even had a sarcastic comment to fling at his best friend, Ric had just put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed him rather painfully considering Damon was much stronger than him. "You can be a shithead about this, but I want you to think about your brother, and your own father, and most of all, I want you to imagine living the rest of your miserable existence knowing you ran out on the chance you have to be better than all of them. Elena knows you don't want it, but she did think you'd at least try, and fuck you if you don't, Damon. _Fuck you_."

(He looks like shit or he _is_ a shit? Not much difference.)

Damon knows he shouldn't say anything now to Katherine and Elijah, but that voice of reason has been drowning in whiskey and scotch for more than 72 hours, and despite various rounds of puking his guts up (he's had the thought that now he, too, has pregnancy symptoms), he has continued to drink.

(He knows he can't kill himself this way, but maybe he's trying a little anyway.)

"Elena's pregnant," he blurts and they both go still as though he's fired a stun gun at them.

It all unravels (or comes together, depending on how you look at it) from there, with Katherine hoisting him to his feet to get him off the floor and onto the sofa so she can force feed him blood and coffee in an effort to get him back to normal. Elijah starts asking a million questions and by the end of the conversation, Damon is sober enough to realize he should never have told them, but if he hadn't, he would really have no clue about how truly dire the situation is.

"Katerina," Elijah says, and Katherine's eyes leave Damon's face for just a moment. He wonders if the Original has tried compelling her again, though he's sure she's probably managed to get a hold of some vervain anyway. Very resourceful, that bitch. "I need to go make some arrangements, why don't you stay here with him until he's sober." He turns back to Damon then and leans in towards him, making eye contact. "You won't drink anymore, not until we've sorted this problem out."

 _Fuck._ Katherine might be on vervain, but Damon's not. He nods his head because he has no other choice and repeats back the order. (He's drunk enough now it's going to take a while for it to leave his system, even with blood and coffee aiding him. This is the plight of the werewolf in him.)

Elijah tips his chin and exchanges glances with Katherine again before leaving the Boarding House. When they're alone, she pats Damon's arm. "You are truly pathetic, you know that?" Her voice isn't as unkind as he expects it to be and he rolls his head towards the sound. She's sitting beside him on the big sofa that he's draped across like a cheap suit. "Why do you let yourself love so deeply, Damon? It's nothing but a liability."

She seems genuinely curious, and he can't seem to stop himself from replying—he blames the alcohol. "I can't do it any other way. The only way to keep it from being this way is to compel the person, and I can't compel Elena. Well, I did once, but I never would now." He studies her face, at once infinitely familiar and completely foreign to him. "You feel the same way, about Stefan. You know you do, otherwise you wouldn't be going to all this trouble. And you know you could end up dead. Will it be worth it, to save him from Klaus if you get killed in the crossfire?"

"I'm not going to get killed," Katherine replies drolly. "This is a fool-proof plan. All the Originals together are going to be much more capable than your little Teenaged Witch. There's no danger, not really."

"You can't bullshit a bullshitter, _Katerina_ ," he says her name in a fairly impressive imitation of Elijah. "You don't trail around after a guy for almost a year, find a way to rescue him, come back to a town where everyone who knows you hates you, and then try to play it off like some every day, ordinary thing. You're no Good Samaritan. You love Stefan, that's why you're doing this."

She narrows her eyes at him. "You want me to confess my love for your brother? I'd guess that would still irritate you."

Damon rolls his eyes. She doesn't get it at all, does she? "I'd have to give a rat's ass about you for that to matter. And I don't. I just want Stefan back."

She purses her lips, obviously weighing her next words before spitting them at him. "Even if it means losing Elena? And your child? Who's the bullshitter now?"

He closes his eyes to break the connection between them and blows out a breath. "There wouldn't be a kid if I'd known it was a possibility. I don't even know how I feel about it."

Katherine sits up and her hand slaps his thigh sharply so his eyes pop open again. "I told you in Arizona what Klaus was up to! When did you know you were a werewolf?"

"Around the same time—but I obviously didn't make the connection between _that_ and myself," he says derisively, shoving her hand off his leg.

"The Damon Salvatore I fell in love with was all about babies and happily ever afters, remember? Remember when you would go on and on about our future? You were devastated when I told you I could never have children."

He stares at her because it's all so very odd, and he's still drunk, and he can't believe she's reminding him of that foolish boy he'd once been. Except, that her memory is long and correct, and that was exactly the way it had been. The way _he'd_ been. But that was a long time ago, and of the two Salvatore brothers, Stefan is the one who would make a good father.

(Well, Stefan pre-blood bender craziness, that is.)

There is some masochistic part of him deep inside that can't help but know that bringing Stefan home is the right thing, because if ever there was a time that his brother needed to get his shit together and step back into the place he carved out for himself here in Mystic Falls, now is the time.

Damon will protect the woman he loves, and the child she carries. And if he has to, he'll step aside. He meant what he said when he told Katherine he'd give up Elena for Stefan. He wasn't being noble, and he wasn't lying. He's always been a placeholder, even if Elena doesn't realize it. When the day comes that she does...well.

He realizes Katherine is still watching him intently. "You'll never be able to do it," she says, as if she can read his thoughts. "You love her more than you ever loved me. And you hated Stefan for 145 years for what happened with me—he told me all about it. You really think you've grown so much you can do it now?"

Again, there's a lack of derision in her tone, just honest-to-goodness curiosity. Damon shrugs. "Maybe I haven't grown, maybe I've reverted. Remember when you thought I was sweet and innocent?"

Her lips twist into a smirk and she shakes her head. "No one's that good."

"Katherine, real love isn't always about getting what you want. You know, I might have been happy if I knew you were alive and safe out there somewhere, but I spent all those years trying to get your ass out of the tomb."

She watches him appraisingly. "So, you'll be happy to let Stefan waltz back in here and take the life you've built?"

 _No._ "What difference does it make to you what I do or think or feel? You know when he comes back to his real self, he's not gonna want anything to do with you."

Centuries of practice isn't enough to keep the emotion from quickly flying across her face before she schools her thoughts. She sets her jaw and says nothing; that's possibly the first time ever, in the history of the whole fucking world that Katherine Pierce has been stymied with words.

Strangely, Damon doesn't feel any victory. "It doesn't matter," he finally answers for both of them. "We're bringing him home; it's the only thing we can do."

* * *

In the zenith of his pleasure with Elena, at the moment when she states _It’s supposed to be us, me and you, forever,_ and then falls apart all around him, he can believe anything is possible. Mostly because he's still a little drunk, and sex always makes him much more optimistic, but especially because Elena's tears and words and kisses seem to chase doubt away like the fluttering of angel wings.

But it's when they're standing in front of their merry little band of misfits that he looks at her and _sees_. In that moment, he really lets himself hope in a way that he never has before. She's got whisker burn across her face, light red marks that slope down her throat and disappear into the collar of the sweatshirt she threw on over her pajamas. It's probably a ridiculous notion, but there is something kind of primal about her actually being marked by him, in that way. (Since his teeth sinking past her creamy skin isn't an option.)

He didn't do it on purpose, but he just hadn't thought to shave while he was drowning his sorrows.

She grimaces at him commiseratingly as Caroline leaves to go back to her mom's house for "Christmas morning" and the rest of them make their way back to bed, since everyone else seems to sleep at the Gilbert house now. It's coming up on 7am, but Damon hasn't had any real sleep since they fought, unless you counted the times he passed out, and he's practically dead on his feet. She tucks him into her bed and climbs in beside him after she's removed all of their clothes. He looks at her questioningly and she just says, "I read some stuff about skin on skin contact being important in relationships," and he doesn't argue because who in their right mind would?

He falls asleep with her leg thrown over his and her head on his chest.

He wakes her by kissing his way up the insides her thighs. She moans softly, and her hands automatically sink into his hair, but then her eyes pop open and she gasps, "They'll hear me." Damon assures her that everyone's downstairs now, because it's almost noon, and her fingers relax, pushing him down instead of pulling him away.

So he uses his tongue to give her a Merry Christmas orgasm, and she's very appreciative, even though he's sure his enthusiasm is in part due to scraping up the delicate skin of her inner thighs there much like he already had her face.

She doesn't seem to mind as she’s sprawled in the middle of the bed, panting softly with a patina of sweat across her bare breasts—which _are_ larger. He learned that this is a result of pregnancy. He had always thought she was just fine as she was, but he definitely likes this aspect of difference in her body. Not only does she look different, she's more sensitive. Just rubbing his thumb over one of her nipples causes a much bigger reaction than the same action a few weeks ago had.

He could really just look at her all day, but he ends up leaning over her to kiss her mouth and her hands slide over his back until she's gripping his ass. She opens her legs and wraps them around his to pull him inside so he doesn't even have to feel bad about the fact that he really hoped this is how it would end up.

He doesn't always give to get, but right now, he really needs to get.

Some time later, he comes back to consciousness by the feel of her fingers in the hair along the nape of his neck. She's lying quietly, content, beneath him, and when he stirs, her legs tighten around him in an odd sort of hug. He's still inside her, though now he's soft.

He eases himself off of her, and she turns into him automatically, snuggling into him in a way that feels ages old. As if they've been together for so long, not just a matter of weeks. He's the first to speak. "I have a bunch of presents for you, back at the Boarding House."

"Mmmm," she says, and her lips move against his throat. "There might be a few things downstairs for you too. But I don't really need anything more than this."

She sort of sucker-punches him with that statement so that all he can do is press a kiss to the top of her head and draw her closer. "I love you, Elena," he says.

"I love you, Damon."

Her mouth opens into a little O of a kiss against his Adam's apple. When her tongue flicks out, he presses his hand to her shoulder. "Don't start again, or the people downstairs who want to eat turkey are going to be very annoyed with us."

She giggles and leans her head back to look at him. "Okay." She smiles at him, and he feels like the luckiest guy on the planet. Unable to resist, he presses his mouth to hers, and they share a deep kiss that could definitely lead to more, but they both break away before it can.

She rolls from the bed and starts for the bathroom. He's just watching the curve of her ass until she turns around to look at him. "You comin', or what?"

"That's a loaded question," he smirks.

"We'll be faster if we shower together. Just keep in mind the hungry people downstairs." He follows her, and that's the _only_ reason he doesn't end up pressing her against the tiles. Well, that, and she brings up the whole _You're not going to compel Lydia_ thing and they start bickering.

They're still arguing when they finally go downstairs fifteen minutes later, after they’ve brushed their teeth, and he’s shaved. Jeremy and Bonnie act like they can't hear them, but Alaric watches avidly, his eyes dancing, and Damon barely restrains himself from punching the guy in the face.

(Ric thinks this whole thing is adorable, Damon being a daddy, etc. No, he hasn't actually said the words, but at this point he knows what Ric's thinking without Ric ever saying a word. It pisses Damon off. He liked it better when Ric’s focus had been more about Damon not hurting Elena rather than Elena coaxing new and better behavior out of Damon.)

Just as Elena says for the fifth time, like he doesn't understand English, "Lydia wears a vervain necklace, she doesn't need to have her memories altered," she also turns a delicate shade of green, and her eyes widen in horror. She turns away abruptly and runs from the kitchen with her hand clamped over her mouth.

Perplexed, Damon looks around and Jeremy gestures like, _duh, man_ and says, "Morning sickness."

"It's almost one o'clock in the afternoon," Damon states.

"Morning sickness is actually a misnomer," Ric shares, his eyebrows waggling. "It can happen any time of the day.

Damon is down the hall and up the stairs very speedily and as Elena dry-heaves into the commode, he gathers her hair into one of his hands and holds it back for her. She moans, gasping as she leans her head against the arm she has draped over the toilet seat. "This kinda sucks, huh?" he asks.

She half-giggles, half-gags, and Damon rubs his free hand over her back. She's in a fluffy terry-cloth robe, but he can feel the curve of her spine beneath his hand. "I just want to keep you safe, both of you," he says in a soft voice. "Let me make sure Lydia doesn't accidentally give away something to someone we're not expecting. I'll just protect us, I won't make her forget everything she knows. Okay?"

Elena turns her head towards him. He’s not sure if the tears in her eyes are caused by emotion or projectile vomiting. "Okay," she says, nodding.

"Okay?" he parrots back in surprise. "Really? You mean it?"

She nods again. "Yeah, I mean it. If I'm going to feel this cruddy for this kid, we've gotta keep him safe." She sits back, leaning against the tub and wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

He lets her go, but stays in his crouched position across from her. "You think it's a boy?" he asks.

"What?" She looks up at the ceiling like she's concentrating really hard on not throwing up again. "I don't know, why?"

"You just called it a him; you said 'we've gotta keep _him_ safe.' Slip of the tongue?"

She shrugs. "Damon, it's the size of a grape. There's no way I could know what it is." Her mouth quirks, and she tilts her head, examining him. "Why? _Do_ you want a boy?"

Now he shrugs, feeling slightly dizzy at the prospect of any child being _his_ child. "I don't know, I've never thought about it." He pauses and asks, "Would it be totally lame to say I just want it to be healthy?"

A watery smile accompanies a head shake, and then she moves slowly across the space separating them to hug him. "No," she whispers. "Not lame at all."

* * *

Two weeks after Christmas, they pack up and go back to Durham. Jeremy and Bonnie stay in Mystic Falls, as planned. Ric, Caroline, Katherine, Elijah, and a few of his family members set out just a few days after the holiday to find Klaus and Stefan. Caroline calls Elena every other day or so to report in, but Ric calls Damon every day at the same time. _Nothing yet_ , he says every time, but nobody's giving up, and that's what matters.

(Damon appreciates that Ric calls even when there's nothing new to say; it's like he just knows that Damon needs to know since he's not actively out looking himself.)

Damon learns that Elijah’s compulsion of him not drinking had been non-specific enough that he can now have a glass or two when the anxiety of fatherhood looms over him. On the other hand, he finds he really doesn’t want to drink as much, and that thought is so horrifying that he just ignores this other new personality trait. (He’s got so many these days, it’s easy to pick and choose.)

Lydia is thrilled with her new housemate, and asks Damon a million questions about being a vampire until he compels her not to; he and Elena fight over that later and he defends himself by saying he needed to compel her about not giving away important information anyway, what harm is it if he makes sure she doesn't drive him crazy while they're living together?

(Because Lydia thinks he’s so fabulous, it’s easy to get her take off her vervain necklace long enough to accomplish his goals.)

Elena frowns mutinously at him, and then has to run and throw up, so it sort of takes any seriousness out of the situation. What's funny is that before, Elena's morning sickness had actually been occurring in the morning, but now it's moved into the early afternoon, and she blames Damon. When he argues that it can in no way be his fault, she tells him it's _all_ his fault and then bursts into tears.

Lydia says, "Hormones," with an all-knowing look like she's been around many pregnant women. (Well, undoubtedly she's been around more than he has.) Damon thinks it's probably a good thing he is not left alone with Elena too often. In a fit of rage, she might stake him yet.

* * *

Some days, if not for Ric's nightly phone call, he could forget about Stefan altogether. The process of going to doctor's appointments with Elena and taking care of her while she's in school and studying becomes the best little project he could never have guessed he'd have. He takes great pride in cooking for her, and making sure he knows all the things pregnant ladies shouldn't consume. He likes giving her footrubs as she starts gaining weight and she's overly tired. (In one of the many pregnancy books he's picked up, they all suggest footrubs to keep circulation at its best.)

His real coup, however, is an item called Ginger Gum. He finds it at the local drug store, and it promises to calm the nausea that all pregnant women feel, so he buys it, figuring it’s worth a shot. Elena makes love to him that night with more fervor than he’s probably ever seen from her just because she feels so much better.

Mostly, he finds a great deal of joy in loving Elena completely, totally, as unabashedly as he's ever done anything.

He's making Chinese stir-fry late one afternoon when Lydia gets home before Elena does. She comes in the kitchen and assists him by chopping up some vegetables. Then he notices she hasn't moved on to her room and the "mountain of homework" she has to do; she's just standing there watching him as he dumps stuff into the wok.

"What?" he asks as he sprinkles soy sauce into the pan.

"I just really admire you, you know. I mean, aside from your incredible hotness, I think you're probably like the best boyfriend ever. Which means I'm raising the bar around here. Whoever ends up with me is going to have to be at least half as thoughtful as you."

Damon scoffs. "Come on, stop making me sound like a saint. Though," he lifts his eyebrows and tosses a charming smile her way. "I won't argue the hotness point."

Lydia laughs and then reaches in, plucking a peapod from the pan. "It's funny, I'm sort of getting used to you now. I don't get breathless every time I look at you anymore." (This girl has no kind of filter, even _with_ compulsion, so really, he doesn't think Elena has any reason to be mad at him about that.) "But you know, what makes you really attractive? How much you love her. I mean, it's obvious in the way you look at her, and the way you talk to her, and the way you treat her. That's just the way it should be, you know?" She throws her stolen vegetable into her mouth and chews thoughtfully. "I just want to be like that with whomever I end up with. I want people to be able to look at us and _see_ the love."

Damon turns the heat down on the burner and grabs the noodles he already cooked, throwing them in with the meat and vegetables. "So when you look at Elena, you can tell she loves me?" he asks, trying to be as nonchalant as a question like that doesn't really allow him to be.

"Oh, yeah," she says dreamily, leaning against the counter. "When we first were roomies, she would mention you, all the time, I mean, I guess you spent a lot of time together as friends or whatever, but it wasn't _what_ she said about you, it was how often you were there, and how her voice sort of got soft sometimes when she shared stuff. I was pretty sure, and I told her I thought she was in love with you, but I knew for sure when you showed up the first time. When she walked through the door and saw you sitting there?" She throws her hands up and flicks her fingers out as she sings, "Baby, you're a firework!"

He laughs because it's funny—she's funny, this girl who says whatever she thinks, and yet accepts oddities like WolfVamps and the doppelgangers they impregnate—but he busies himself with stirring and doesn't confirm or deny anything she's just said. Lydia's hand touches his arm before she finally leaves the kitchen. "You have nothing to worry about."

She gets all the way to her bedroom door before she turns around. "I mean, when your brother comes back. You've got nothing to worry about _then_."

He glances over at her. "Yeah, I got it. I knew what you meant."

She cocks her head. "Yes, but you don't _believe_ it. But you will. You'll see." She closes the door behind her and Damon focuses really hard on the green, red, and orange concoction in front of him.

(He tries to ignore the way his heart soars in his chest at her pronouncement.)

* * *

At the end of February, Ric calls Damon at just the same moment that Caroline calls Elena. They look at each other and then Elena reaches for his hand as they both hear the words, "Klaus is dead, for good," from two separate entities.

Elena starts crying, and then leaves the room, going into the bedroom for privacy and Damon says to Ric, "Let me talk to Stefan."

"Yeah, about that..."

"What?"

"He's not ready to talk. He's alive, and he's gonna be okay, but he isn't yet, and he doesn't want to talk to you, or Elena, at least not for a while."

"Well, fuck Stefan. Tell him, I've had enough of what he wants, and it's _my_ turn now."

"Damon, be reasonable," Ric admonishes.

"Excuse me?" Damon barks. "Have you met me? I'm not reasonable. And that's my fucking brother. Put him on the goddamn phone, Ric."

"He won't talk to you, so deal with it. I'm going to help him and Caroline get set up and then Bonnie, Jeremy, and I will go home. Stefan wants to detox away from Mystic Falls."

Damon doesn't think he's ever been more pissed at his brother, ever, in 168 years of practically being pissed at him the entire time. Of course, it's all about Stefan, and it's whatever Stefan wants. _Fucking Stefan._ This is the story of his life. So he picks at the one thing left to him. "Jeremy came with Bonnie, even though I told him to stay put?"

"Looks like you're the boss of exactly nothing," Alaric says, and then he's laughing, and Damon figures it's more hysterical relief than it is Ric thinking his comedy routine is that funny.

"Well, I knew you needed a witch to kill an Original, I didn't think you needed a snot-nosed brat."

"You know he can't hear you, right?"

Damon just blows out a breath and nearly crushes his cell phone to bits in his hand. Anger races through him and no amount of deflecting will get rid of it. "You tell Stefan," he growls into the phone, "that as soon as he's feeling 'up' to it, he better fucking call me, or the next time I see him, I'll stake him. Period."

"I can do that," Ric says, and then his voice sobers. "Seriously, Damon, he's okay. He's gonna _be_ okay."

"Yeah. _Thanks_ ," Damon spits, feeling anything but grateful.

He hangs up his phone and goes into the bedroom to find Elena. She lays on the bed on her side, a pillow stuffed under her head. She too is finished with her phone call, her cell resting on the bedside table. He leans against the doorjamb, and their eyes meet. "You okay?" he asks. He’s calming down; he can feel his temper receding as he looks at her face.

She nods, even as tears slip down her cheeks. "Are you?" she asks.

"No," he snipes. "Stefan won't fucking talk to me."

"Me, neither. Caroline said he needs time. She's gonna stay with him, help him." Elena pats the bed beside her and beckons to him until he comes and sits next to her.

He takes the hand she has stretched out towards him. Squeezing her fingers gently with his own, he shakes his head. "How long is that gonna be? And how long is Tyler gonna be all _sure, Caroline, take care of the junkie vampire_? I'm sure he's annoyed that she's been gone for two months already."

Elena's brow creases as she looks at him. "Tyler and Caroline broke up, Damon. Before Christmas."

"They did? Where was I?"

She smiles sadly. "Not up on the gossip, I guess."

He pauses, thinking back over the last few months, examining the moments they'd been around his house. "They were always at the house, hanging out, spending time together in a place neither of their mothers would think to look for them. If they were having problems, wouldn't I be the first to know?"

"It was just a couple weeks before Christmas. I'm guessing your mind was on other things." The smile that spreads over her face this time has that womanly pride that makes him fall in love with her all over again. "They had been fighting a lot, about the tension between their mothers, and they just weren't willing to choose between each other and their parents. It was really hard. I don't imagine Caroline wanted to confide in you."

Damon snorts. Despite Caroline having seen him at some of his lowest points with regard to Stefan, they weren't the best of friends; there were some things a girl just couldn't forget, and an apology was hardly going to make up for what he'd done to her back in the day. It was enough that Caroline didn't bad mouth him to Elena and had willingly gone to help his brother. He could never repay her what he owed her. "No, I don't imagine she would." He looks down at his fingers entwined with Elena's. "They really loved each other. I'm surprised they'd call it quits."

Her voice is soft. "Sometimes things don't work out the way we plan." He doesn't allow his eyes to rush back to hers; instead he focuses on the weave of her fingers through his. The fear that never quite recedes seems to fill him up again, brimming at the back of his throat like bile. "Sometimes they go bad; sometimes they go way better than we expect."

His lips twitch into a smile, because he knows she's reading him like a book. "Says the girl who throws up every day." Slowly, he raises his eyes to hers.

"I haven't puked _at all_ today," she says, pressing a wad of gum forward with her tongue to hold between her teeth for his benefit. Her smile turns into a grin that threatens to crack her face.

He leans down, rubbing his lips over the curve of her mouth. When she is happy, when she shows her joy over carrying his child, he feels as giddy as a five year old in a candy store. Elena's hand caresses his cheek and she says quietly, "Stefan will eventually want to talk to you. You'll see."

She pulls him into a hug, and he doesn't say what froths on his lips: he almost hopes she's wrong.

* * *

When Damon reflects back, he can see the course of Elena, broken into three acts: when she came into his life and started affecting changes in him that he didn't even equate with her; when her blood literally changed him from Vampire to WolfVamp, creating something unforeseen by anyone in centuries of myths and legends. And lastly, now, there is the whole other part of him—the part dubbed _daddy_ that he can't wrap his mind around. Like, his obsession with Elena's growing stomach, and his inability to walk into a store without finding himself in the tiny clothes section, or the fact that every time he looks at her, getting rounder and rounder, he can't stop the smile that breaks out over his face, or the joy that floods through him that he's still so wary of fully embracing.

It's such a distant, faded memory, the human version of himself that wanted a family, that during the first few months of her pregnancy, it's just this foreign concept that makes him feel half-crazy. Then one night, they're lying in bed and he's got a hand on her abdomen and he has this flash, a remembrance of petticoats and little brown babies and his mother coming in from the slave quarters where she'd spent hours with someone in labor. She'd smiled tiredly at him and patted his cheek and whispered conspiratorially, "In a few months you'll have your very own baby brother or sister."

He'd only been five, and things like that were not spoken of, so he didn't entirely understand it at the time, but then Stefan had arrived, and his mother had gone away. He loved his little brother ferociously, especially in the months following his mother's death when his father couldn't look at the child, and there had only been their mammy around to comfort and care for them both.

In the late afternoon of the day Damon and Elena see the ultrasound of their little girl, Damon ends up locking himself in the bathroom of their apartment because it's all beginning to flow in his head in this weird way. The baby is all tied up in Stefan, either in the memory of joy when his brother came into his life, or the idea that this is probably wrong, and Stefan should be the father. Then to compound it further, he both wants his brother to come home, and he never wants to see him ever, ever again.

The building nausea in his stomach reminds him that Elena has long since passed this phase of pregnancy, but it doesn’t make the feeling go away.

He's pretty much ready for the WolfVamp Psych Ward. Elena knocks on the door and asks him if he's okay and he lies and says he'll be out in a minute, but that's probably been twenty minutes ago now, and suddenly the bathroom door flies open and Lydia is standing there with a credit card in one hand and a glass of Scotch in the other. "See," she says, looking over her shoulder at Elena once they spy him sitting on the edge of the tub. "Just freaking out."

She slaps the glass into his hand and gives his back a _thwack-thwack_ pounding and then she disappears, leaving Elena standing there watching him. She rubs her hand over her belly, which, at twenty-two weeks has popped out quite nicely. There is no mistaking what her condition is when he looks at her.

His primordial urges have increased with her size. Some part of him finds power in the sexual bond between them that has grown stronger throughout her pregnancy because of the heightened hormonal plane that she exists in now. He can make her orgasm with just the right caressing movements of his fingers and tongue against her nipples, and they've been forced to get inventive with the way they have sex as her middle section has gotten bigger.

He's learned to take her from behind in a way that even now, just sitting there on the edge of the tub sipping scotch scared out of his head with all the prospects of _them_ and _fatherhood_ and _everything_ , he's getting hard remembering their private moments together. He can't decide if desperation has driven him to the point where he's more generous as a lover than ever before, but it doesn't matter. All that matters is Elena sweaty and satisfied on the pillow, her fingers digging into the hair at the nape of his neck and her breath shuddering out of her lungs.

She steps inside the bathroom and shuts the door behind her before coming over to climb in his lap. He knows she can feel his arousal, but she says nothing, just buries her face against his shoulder and whispers, "Talk to me."

"I'll be okay," he murmurs, but he's not sure he believes it himself, so it's unlikely that she'll buy it either.

"What are you most afraid of?" she asks, her fingers skimming up and down on the back of his neck.

 _Losing you_. _Wanting this so much that the only thing that can happen is for it to be taken from me._ "That I won't be good at it. I'm a vampire-werewolf Hybrid, Elena. I shouldn't be anyone's father."

"But you are. You’re going to be the father of a beautiful little girl." She sits up so that she can cup his face in her hands and look into his eyes. "And what you're really afraid of is how much you love her already, right? She's not even here yet, and she's got your heart in her tiny hands." She brushes her lips over his gently, ever-so-softly, and his jeans get even tighter. "But you'll be amazing, I know you will. I've never known anyone who gives love so freely. You know what will be the hard thing? Her ever finding anyone who loves her as well as her daddy does."

Damon covers her mouth with his and the empty tumbler makes a loud _thunk_ as it hits the fluffy bath mat beneath his feet. It rolls away and his hands grip her head to get his mouth over hers completely so he can kiss her more thoroughly than he ever has before. Then he tips her head back, or maybe her neck just gives out on its own, but he ends up sucking the skin over her throbbing pulse up against his teeth. He knows he's leaving a mark, but it's so much _less_ than what he wants to do that he makes himself be satisfied with it.

She's wearing a loose, blousey button-up, and he slips his hands under the lapels, tugging them apart until the buttons all snap off and she's filling his palms, her breasts spilling from the confines of her bra as he unhooks it gracelessly. He growls her name against her throat and she arches into him, whimpering his name in return, with desperate little puffs of air hitting his forehead. "Please, please, _please_ ," she cries, and her fingers press against the back of his head, urging him to do what, he's not sure. (Won't let himself think about.)

He yanks his mouth away and strums her nipples until she's wild in his arms. She bucks against him urgently, and when he can tell she's right on the verge, he sends one hand into the soft pants she's wearing to find her wet and creamy center. He barely gets two fingers inside her and his thumb over her clitoris before she's keening into his shoulder, grasping him tightly with her arms as she spasms into his palm.

They're both breathing heavily, and Damon's happy to let it end there, considering Lydia must be able to hear everything. Faintly he picks up a radio and running water, which must mean she's doing the dishes in the kitchen.

Elena kisses his ear and then slides from his lap, kneeling between his legs on the bath mat. He reads the intent in her eyes as she pulls his belt loose, and he'd protest more if he were _not_ himself; but he _is_ , and her mouth around his cock is pretty much the equivalent to the sweet words she uttered minutes ago that started this whole thing. He's not sure he is the way she sees him, but there is something about her believing it that makes him think he _can_ be. As she lovingly laves the head of his penis, though, all those doubts and fears scatter, and his world narrows to her lips and teeth and tongue and the way her eyes communicate so many intensely emotional things as she looks up at him. He uses every bit of will power he's got to keep his eyelids up so he doesn't miss a single solitary movement, and the sensation of seeing it while feeling it causes him to grip the edge of the tub beneath him in an effort to hold out longer, for it to go on and on, for his mind to be blown by the image of Elena before him in such a trusting and completely giving way.

He loves her more than he can comprehend, more than any words he knows can convey, and the actual physical ecstasy of it made manifest between them is enough to destroy him, every time. It's metaphorical, but it's categorically _real_ at the same time. When the moment is upon him, he touches her face in warning, but she doesn't move away; she swallows with him deep in her throat and he comes so hard he sees stars and swirls of colors light years away.

It's all Elena, every time, and no matter what he thinks he can do in more rational moments, it's in that quiet non-existent space of time right after he's given her everything he has that he knows he'll burn up in the sun before he'll ever watch Stefan take his place.

* * *

Elena finishes her classes with relatively good grades (four As and one B) and passes her first year of college in mid-May. She and Damon return to Mystic Falls because she's decided she'll take at least one semester off. The baby is due in August, and, she tells Damon, "There's no way I can manage a new baby and new classes within weeks of each other. I need time to adjust. I can reapply for the spring semester."

Damon's fine with it; it was never his idea that she go to school, and he's never cared about it one way or another. He knows it's important to her, because it was important to her parents, to Jenna, and now to Ric of course, not to mention she feels she's setting an example for her brother who will graduate from high school in June.

As they hug Lydia goodbye (she's on her way home to Florida for the summer), Damon invites her to come out to Mystic Falls in a month's time. "June's fun in the burg. We always have a summer Festival in celebration of the founding of the town. Come up and you can stay at my family's estate. See what Elena's got herself into." He bumps his hip into Elena's and she mock glares at him. Now that Klaus is dead, Damon has stopped worrying about danger lurking around every corner, and if Lydia wants more of it, she’s welcome to it, as far as he’s concerned.

Lydia agrees, her eyes shining with excitement. What she really cares about, of course, is meeting everyone she's heard tell about and saying inappropriate things to them, most likely, but in reality that's why Damon invites her. He can't wait to see Bonnie's face the first time Lydia insults her.

Elena transfers her medical information to a local doctor and they continue to make birthing preparations, except that Elena doesn't want to buy a crib, car seat, stroller, or anything. "It's bad luck," she says, telling him of some Jewish friend she made in one of her classes who had a superstition about buying things prior to the baby's birth.

"But I've bought like a million outfits for this kid," Damon says, looking at her across the bench seat of the Camaro. "You're just bringing this up now?"

"Clothes are okay, but the big stuff—I just want to wait, okay? Please, just humor the crazy, pregnant lady."

"Done and done," he says quickly, remembering just the day before when a meltdown had occurred over him packing up food from the cupboard that Elena wanted to give to the local homeless shelter. These days, he never knew what would set her off.

She smiles at him, reaching her hand over to squeeze his leg, but before she makes contact, she gasps loudly.

"What? What?" he asks, nearly putting them into the car in the lane next to theirs when he looks over at her and she's clutching her belly in both hands.

"She just kicked me, really hard!" Elena says, laughing. "Pull over!" she shouts and Damon finds a hole in traffic to get across to the shoulder of the highway. He throws the car in park and stretches an arm towards her.

His hand hovers over her stomach and their eyes meet. For a few weeks now, Elena's been able to feel flutters, things that Damon probably could feel due to his heightened senses if ever the baby would move when he was trying to feel it. Elena had joked with him that his daughter must be shy because she never did move in those instances; it was of course just another issue he had tucked away in his Things to Worry and Obsess Over pile, but now, sitting on the side of I-85, Elena grabs his hand and pulls it down low on her belly. "There! There! There!" she shouts every time the baby moves, and he feels every single movement.

"It's just like the doctor said!" she exclaims. "She's totally mobile now, Damon. Oh my gosh! Can you feel that?"

He nods because his throat has closed off in a strange manner. Words feel superfluous, anyway. He just leans into her, kissing her mouth long and hard and his daughter dances under his hand the entire time.

* * *

Two weeks after Founder's Day, Elena says, "We're going shopping!" and drags Lydia behind her towards the front door of the Boarding House. "I need bigger clothes, unfortunately."

"Have fun," Damon says, waving a hand. Lydia gives him a pleading look, as though she doesn't want to go shopping (again) but he pretends not to notice. He loves Elena, more than life, but he sure as hell doesn't want to go shopping himself, and Lydia has ended up staying more than a week longer than they originally planned because she, Bonnie, and Elena get along so well.

He treasures the silence in the Boarding House after they've gone, and he buries himself in his book.

A couple of hours later, he gets up to get a glass of scotch and then heads into the kitchen to start dinner. He lives a totally mundane existence now, and there are moments when he thinks about the ludicrousness of him cooking dinner for his girlfriend and her house guest, but the reality is, he's incredibly happy living a mundane life.

Whoda thunk it? Certainly not him; not ever.

He's pulling chicken from the freezer when he hears someone in the house. He waits for the chatter of women to reach his ears before they appear in the kitchen, but nothing follows that, and just as he's about to call out to Elena, the swinging door opens and someone says his name.

Someone he hasn't seen since the beginning of November—when his iPhone got staked; someone he hasn't spoken to either, because even though he's been in "rehab" and Caroline's called in the slow but steady progress for several months, Damon has not actually ever had a phone call from his little brother.

It is now the end of June, and he's standing in the kitchen, frozen meat clutched in his hand and his brother standing in the doorway, looking exactly the way he has since 1864, except for his clothes.

"Hello, brother," Stefan says, a bit of a salute in his eyebrows as he nods in Damon's direction.

"Well, well, well," Damon replies, tossing the chicken on the counter and shutting the refrigerator door behind him. "If it isn't the infamous Stefan Salvatore."

They just stand there, staring at each other, both still and tense, as though at any moment this meeting could go sideways and they might end up staking each other.

Damon moves first, picking up his drink from the sideboard where he'd set it down minutes before. "Want a beverage?" he asks.

Stefan nods stiffly. "That might help."

Damon leads the way into the library, and pours his brother a tumbler full of the same scotch he's sipping on. He stretches his hand out towards Stefan and when Stefan reaches for it, Damon jerks it back, forcing Stefan to come closer. When less than two feet separate them, Damon sets both glasses down again and grabs his brother in a hug. Stefan's frame relaxes slowly, and then his arms wrap around Damon. They stand that way for a very brief space of time.

Then Damon slaps the back of Stefan's head as he releases him. "I told Ric to tell you that if you didn't call me, I'd stake you the next time I saw you. You testing that threat?"

Stefan reaches for his drink and throws it back before answering. "No," he says, slamming the glass down on the table top. "I figured if you were gonna stake me, it wouldn't matter if I warned you I was coming or not." He folds his arms over his chest. "And," he adds. "If you're gonna do it, the least I owe you is no resistance."

"Oh, but what's the fun in that?" Damon asks with a smirk. He rests his hips against the back of the sofa and studies his brother. He's leaner again—obviously back on animal blood—but his eyes are focused and steady, and that more than anything helps Damon know that _his_ brother, the one who has driven him nearly insane with his self-righteousness, is back. "You look good," he says, giving Stefan an appraising once over. "How are you?"

Stefan nods. "I'm well. Much better. Haven't had any human blood in almost four months." He glances around the room, and Damon knows what he wants to ask, but he just can't make it easy for him.

"You're feeling back to your old self then, huh? Ready to lecture me and look down on me from your uppity horse? I'm still drinking human blood, but I haven't killed anyone by feeding since Rose died." He shrugs when Stefan's eyes land on him again. "I mean, as long as we're reporting stuff like that." (He doesn't count Klaus's helper witches whose necks he snapped; they _deserved_ to die.)

"No, yeah, I heard things had changed around here. And I can tell. Feels different. You seem...different. More...human. It's not pretending, is it, Damon? To embrace that part of you that once was."

Damon finishes off his drink, a burst of liquid courage down his throat that probably shouldn't loosen his tongue the way it does. "I think you called it _something worth living for_?"

Stefan shakes his head, smiling sadly as he looks down at the floor. "There he is, same old Damon."

He has a moment, just a flash really, of sympathy for Stefan. He should be more generous; the truth is he has the girl, and he knows it. He knows that Elena loves him, that what they are preparing for has bonded them in a manner that changes everything. And, the truth is, now, he's been with Elena longer than Stefan ever was.

It's on the tip of his tongue to apologize, to retract the snarky words, to be the better man that Elena has somehow cultivated out of the bitter, angry vampire that Stefan used to know. But before he can actually verbalize any of that, the library door bursts open and Lydia and Elena come into the room. "Damon, wait until you see this adorable—"

And then she freezes, her arm halfway up in the air and a blue, footed pajama with animal ears on the hood dangling from a small plastic hanger in her hand. Stefan's head had turned toward the sound, but he just stares at her, the length of the room between them. It's all something out of a bad movie: the tragic flash of eyes—Elena looking at Damon, then Stefan; Damon looking at Stefan then Elena, then Lydia, who is standing just behind Elena, confusion etched on her face. But when her eyes connect with Damon's, something registers, and he knows the second she understands because her mouth drops open and a gasp cracks through the room like a gunshot. Stefan's eyes dart to the stranger he doesn't know, then back to Elena, and he takes a step towards her. His gaze can't help but fall to her distended belly, covered by a form-fitting t-shirt today that's almost too short for the girth of her stomach.

Damon stops breathing when Elena drops the baby clothes and runs into his brother's embrace.

He turns away when she wraps her arms around Stefan's shoulders, and he wishes he couldn't hear her crying and laughing and blabbering incoherently as she hugs him.


	7. Revelation (The End)

Elena doesn't think when she sees Stefan standing in the library with Damon, she just reacts. She flashes through more than a year without seeing him, and all the times she thought of him, worried for him, hoped that one day she might see him again—whole, alive, the person she remembered.

So when she flies into his arms, she's not thinking of how utterly awkward it will be with Damon's child between them, or how she'll feel as she looks over Stefan's shoulder and sees the way Damon turns his back on them, as if he can't bear to watch them.

(Which, undoubtedly, he cannot.)

But Stefan wraps her tight in his arms anyway and she's crying and laughing and they're talking over one another so much that she has no idea what he's said until she pulls back to wipe at her face with trembling fingers and his palm settles warmly over her belly.

He moves his hand over the swell easily, and the baby kicks in greeting and they both laugh again. Elena clears her throat and says, "Hi, Uncle Stefan," and then his eyes come up to hers and the gravity of everything settles between them like a metal door.

Damon's head jerks in their direction, like he's having a battle with himself, but then he finally looks over at them and Elena meets his gaze with her own.

She's not stupid enough to think that Damon has ever really settled into what they've got going on. If he had, by now he would have approached a few topics that he has judiciously avoided: that of them having any sort of spoken commitment between them other than the exchange of _I love you_ and, of course, the state of Elena's mortality.

She hasn't brought it up either, mostly because she's pregnant right now, and the feasibility of becoming a vampire any time soon is obviously not possible. And, secretly, she's wondered if they might want to have more children after this one; in which case, she'd need to stay human for as long as they want to do that.

But these are things she hasn't mentioned because he gets that deer-in-the-headlights look every so often, when the excitement and anticipation of their new arrival wanes into worry that he can't do _this_ , or be _that_ , or whatever crazy thing goes through his head on any given day.

Elena has counted small victories along the way: that he stayed; that he's been loving and attentive throughout the pregnancy; that he cried when they saw her ultrasound—little baby head, little baby fingers, little baby _girl_. Her own doubts finally flew away completely the day they agreed on a name for the baby, because nothing said _emotional investment_ like naming the child after both of their mothers.

She is wise enough now, in this moment, to hold out her hand to Damon and invite him closer as Stefan steps back, his eyes still drawn to her stomach, though his hand had moved away seconds before. Damon hesitates for just a fraction of a moment, and then he comes to her, his hand enveloping hers as Elena says, "I'm glad you're home." She catches Stefan's gaze with her own as he quite determinedly doesn't look at Damon and Elena's joined hands.

"I'm glad you're happy," he says, swallowing nervously. His eyes skitter to his brother's face. "I'm glad you're _both_ happy."

Elena feels Damon's body tense, and she squeezes his hand hard, hoping he's not about to say some asinine thing. He squeezes back and she doesn't turn her head to look at him when he finally utters, "Are you home for good?"

Stefan shrugs and moves away from them a little. "I wondered if I'd be welcome, honestly," he says and then he pauses when there's some space between them. He glances over at Lydia, who Elena had forgotten about momentarily. "I'm sorry; I don't know you. I'm Stefan Salvatore."

Elena looks over at her friend, who is still in the entryway of the room, though she's picked up the shopping bags Elena had dropped. "Lydia Oliver," she says in a stunned voice, and it's enough to make Elena start snickering. Lydia is finally really speechless, not just announcing that she's speechless while she rambles on about Freud or some other ridiculous thing.

Elena's giggles must be contagious because Damon loses it, his laughter joining hers. She turns into him, burying her face against his shoulder.

Stefan asks, "What's so funny?" but Elena can hear the grin in his voice.

She turns back to look at him. "What's not?" she asks, still giggling. "What would you call this, Lyd?"

There is absolutely no hesitation from the far side of the room. " _Awk_ ward."

Damon laughs harder, practically guffawing, and Elena rolls her hand as though inviting Stefan to bow. "There you have it."

His grin widens and he shrugs. "I suppose this is better than I could have hoped for, in reality."

"You should stay here," Elena says firmly and Damon stops laughing, but doesn't say anything. "It's your house. You should come home, Stefan, to the place that you left anything that ever mattered to you." She looks at Damon then, both because his silence worries her and because Stefan needs to know she understands what it is that brought him home. It's always been about Damon, and that suits her just fine, because that's what it's about for her now, too.

Damon's eyes touch hers briefly and a small smile plays at his lips. "She's right. I mean, it's not like your room is right next to the nursery, but it doesn't really matter. We'll hear this kid way before her momma will."

Elena rolls her eyes. "He doesn't believe in mother's intuition, even though it's in every book he's read. I guarantee you, I'll be up with her more than either of you will, super-sonic hearing notwithstanding."

"You're having a girl?" Stefan asks, his eyes dropping again to her non-existent waistline.

"Yup," Damon says. He reaches a hand over and covers Elena's belly, and the possession in his tone would disturb her if they were in any other situation. "Miranda Grace Salvatore."

Stefan stares at his brother for a long moment; then he nods and turns away, a hand reaching up to dash sudden tears from the corner of his eye. Later, Lydia will tell Elena that this whole scene was "riveting" but nothing more so than the instance when Stefan lifts his head to pronounce, "Wow. That's just beautiful."

Elena thinks so too, and she smiles through a few stray tears that trickle down her cheeks. "We're going to call her Grace," she shares and he just shakes his head, like he can't stand it, but in a good way.

"I was just going to cook some dinner for these girls; you wanna stay?" Damon asks, totally changing the subject.

Stefan nods again, smiling wryly as he says, "I just need to call Caroline so she knows you didn't stake me."

"She can come too; in fact, Elena, you should call Jer and Bonnie and Ric. They might like to see the product of their handy work." He jerks his head towards the kitchen. "Wanna help, Lydia?"

"Of course, I do," she says emphatically, looking relieved. "I'd much rather have something to do other than just standing around gaping at y'all."

Damon squeezes Elena's hand one more time, pats the baby bump, and walks over to Lydia. Slinging his arm around her neck, he pulls her out of the library and Elena watches while Stefan dials Caroline's number on his cell phone.

He hangs up a minute later and smiles. "She's on her way."

"Do you even want to see everyone? I can wait to call them; I mean, I don't want to overwhelm you."

"Elena, I've pretty sure I've weathered the worst of it right here. And I do owe Bonnie a huge thank you, as well as Ric; I heard he was quite daring in the final battle."

Elena chuckles. "Well, to hear him tell it, the vampires and witches hardly needed to be there. Ric has, for all intents and purposes, become the human version of Damon."

They start to head toward the door, following the sound of Lydia and Damon's voices. "So this was a surprise, right?" He gestures at her belly. "I mean, you didn't mean to get pregnant?" Stefan asks.

Elena gives him a look of disbelief. "Complete and utter shock. Both of us were stunned and it took some adjustment. But now..." She places her hand on her protruding stomach and rubs it in a circular motion. "Now, it just feels like it was meant to be, you know?"

She looks at Stefan as they near the kitchen door and he clenches his jaw as he slowly nods his head. "It's funny how things work out, huh?"

Elena stops him before he can open the swinging door to join Damon and Lydia. She wraps him in her arms again, and this time it's not quite as awkward. "I'm so glad you're here. I really am."

He presses his face into her neck, his lips touching her throat the way they used to. As if in silent goodbye to the things they never got to have closure on, he squeezes her once and then pushes her back. "I am too," he says, and Elena can hear the sincerity in his voice.

She thinks this might end up being the best thing that ever happened.

* * *

The weeks slip by after Stefan comes home, the lazy days of summer giving way to new developments. Lydia goes home, but promises to come back when the baby's born; Caroline comes by the Boarding House a lot, and Elena begins to suspect something is going on between her and Stefan that neither of them is ready to admit; when she mentions this to Damon, his eyes light up for a moment and then he shakes his head in denial.

"He's like that, you know. Just gets friends and stays that way for hundreds of years. Him and Lexi? Strictly platonic. So, you know, I'm thinking this is the same thing."

Elena turns on her side as she eases into bed. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find a comfortable sleeping position. "But come on, Damon, this is _Caroline_ , she—"

She stops talking when he puts his finger against his lips and then cups his hand around his ear. It's been a while since she's had to quiet herself because a vampire was nearby and might be listening in, but Damon whispers, "The couple in question just came through the front door. No need to make it awkward for them."

Elena scoots closer to him and whispers, "Did you know that Caroline was going to kill Katherine, but didn't only because Elijah asked her not to?"

Damon rolls his eyes and whispers back, "Well, let's hope they live miserably ever after wherever the hell they are together."

Elena starts laughing and reaches out, putting her hand on his arm. "That reminds me, guess who Lydia has been texting ever since she went home?"

"Who?"

Elena whispers dramatically, "Tyler Lockwood."

"Shut up. When did she even _meet_ him?"

"One day, when we were out shopping, we ran into him at The Grill. They hit it off."

"And, she knows he's a werewolf?" Damon questions.

"Well, yes, that was the fun awkward moment we had when he came over to say hello and introduce himself. She was all, _so you're the werewolf who bit Damon!_ and Tyler was embarrassed, and well, you know. Then he thought she was adorable somehow."

"Lydia _is_ adorable. Or perhaps the word is _adorkable_. Either way, what a hoot! Let's hope Carol can handle her forthrightness."

Elena nods and then touches the book in his hands. "What are you reading now?" she asks.

"It's that book that the birth coach gave me." He holds it up so she can see the title, which is The Birth Partner. "I figured I knew I could handle the blood stuff that will happen, but I ought to know more of what I can do specifically."

They had started their birth classes, and Lisa, the director, was already half in love with Damon; Elena could see it every time the woman looked at him. It made her feel a little better that the books he was borrowing from her were things to help with their baby's imminent arrival.

"You're so cute," Elena says, leaning her head back on her pillow. As has become their custom, she's lying beside his upright body, because he almost always reads before he goes to sleep. In some ways they have become an old married couple, except for the fact that even at almost eight months pregnant, Elena sometimes looks at him and wants him with a ferociousness that rivals their early days together. The books all said it was hormones (she knows because Damon's read them all), but she thinks it’s probably something specific about him, too.

(About her and him together.)

Mad, passionate love. What she had in her heart for him, and what he never failed to show her he felt in practically every action he made.

"Oh, please, don't start that again," he groans, shaking his head. "Between you and Lydia and your constant comments on my attentiveness and thoroughness—read: obsession—with this whole baby thing, I'm beginning to feel my masculinity dwindle down to nothingness."

Elena closes her eyes and snuggles next to him; despite her desire for him, often the fatigue she feels squashes some of the energy she'd need to follow through on her _wants_. "I can't help how adorable you are; I just have to comment on it."

He snorts, but says nothing.

She opens an eye and looks up at him. "You know, I was really worried about this whole Stefan-coming-home thing, but it's been fine. I'm super glad about that."

He looks down at her and then brushes his fingers over her cheek. "Me, too," he says softly. He gently pinches her bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. "Get some sleep, baby momma."

She drifts away with his hand in her hair.

* * *

Elena, if describing herself, would say that her greatest attribute is her steadfastness once she's made a decision. She weighs things out for a long time before she settles on something, and writing her feelings and thoughts down in a journal has always been part of her process.

So, before she approaches Stefan with the latest decision she's made, she contemplates just what she should say to him about it. She knows she needs to be truthful about her motives, and she needs advice from someone who isn't Damon. She could talk to Caroline, but she has no doubt it would get back to Stefan what with all the time they spend together now, so she chooses to sidestep all of that and go straight to the source.

So while Damon's at a Council meeting, she finds Stefan in his room at his desk. He is also writing in his journal, and she smiles to herself, remembering the things that brought them together. She is grateful for that time, even though she went through a lot of pain. She's certain she wouldn't be here now if not for that—if not for Stefan coming into her life. And now that she's on the backside of it, she's sure it's a good thing.

He looks up as she walks into the room. "Hey, there," he says.

"I need to tell you something," she says, not even trying to beat around the bush. She just wants it out there, wants to be honest and forthcoming, and...she doesn't want to hurt him, but she just needs to say it. Before she loses her nerve.

He puts his pen down and gives her his full attention. "Okay," he says.

"I'm probably going to become a vampire at some point."

Stefan's brows shoot upward, and then his eyes fall to her belly. (Truthfully, she doesn't think he ever looks at her that he doesn't spend a good portion of that time staring at her stomach.) Then he just nods and his eyes lift to hers again. "Okay."

Somewhat deflated by the agreement in his response, and the understanding in his expression, she comes more fully into his room and gingerly lowers herself down on to the sofa that sits opposite from his desk. "So that's all you have to say?" she asks in exasperation. She expected it to be harder; for him to be injured by the news that she didn't have the same reservations with Damon that she'd had with him.

It's not even about Stefan or Damon, in reality. She sort of realizes that as she's watching the play of emotion over his face; her decision is about _her_ and the fact that she's changed as a person. Given the chance to have a child has helped her realize it. As her daughter has grown within her, as she's felt the movement of _life_ , the meaning of it, and the opportunity of it not ending, but going on indefinitely had begun to appeal to her. The one thing she knows is that she wants to be with Damon forever; it had been a young girl in the throes of first love who had been practical enough to determine things like that don't last forever. It's the wisdom she possesses as the woman she is now, even though she's barely two years older in actual time that provided a different answer with a different vampire boyfriend.

Stefan rubs his hands together and leans forward to prop his elbows on his knees, bringing him closer to her in the process. He smiles at her, softly, and she can see that he's choosing his words carefully. "I know you wouldn't make that decision lightly. I also know that something pretty profound has happened between you and Damon—and I don't mean the baby—for you to come to that conclusion. Do you want me to say I'm disappointed? I'm not, Elena. I trust your judgment; I always have. Even though you've made decisions I wouldn't have made for you, they weren't my choices; they were yours. They _are_ yours. You love Damon. You want to be with him forever. Becoming a vampire is the logical ending to that train of thought."

He sits back, still gazing at her with a particularly gentle expression. "Things changed, and you got to experience events that you needed to go through to know this is the right path for you. I'd be lying if I said part of me doesn't wish it was me; but it's not and I have never seen Damon like this. He's more content—at peace—than at any time ever in his existence. You've given him something that no one else ever could."

The emotion that flows between them is a connection she could only have dreamed they might one day share. Just as she has suspected since the moment he left Mystic Falls with Klaus, she knows for sure now that Stefan's primary concern is Damon. Damon is fine, and thus, so is Stefan. She leans forward and puts her hand over his. "Stefan, I'll always love you; you'll always be my first love. It's just different now."

"I know," he says. Again, he's so agreeable that Elena realizes she had been creating conflict in her head that doesn't actually exist.

It's another perfect moment in the middle of a season of her life she isn't sure she deserves.

* * *

Grace comes on a Thursday morning, screaming her way into the world while Elena bears downs and crushes Damon's hand in hers. He jokes with her later that it's a good thing he has super-healing powers because she definitely broke two of his fingers. Then he kisses her in an all-too sexy manner considering she has just given birth and they won't be doing anything like that for some time.

She holds her baby girl, swaddled in a pink nursery blanket, and Damon gets in the hospital bed with her so he "can hold both my girls at the same time." Elena refrains from telling him he's as adorable as their newborn baby.

* * *

A few weeks later, Elena's changing Grace's diaper as Damon jumps up to join them on his giant bed. "Need some help?" he asks, leaning down to nuzzle the side of Grace's head. She reaches a small hand up and grabs at his nose.

Elena smiles at him. "No, it looks like I've got it all under control here. Although you can hold her if you want. She just ate, so she'll be content for a bit."

As he scoops up the baby, his eyes catch hers and he asks, "What would you think about us getting married?" as casually as he would ask her what time it is.

Her mouth drops open and she freezes in the act of wrapping up the wet diaper for disposal. She gasps for an answer because she really hadn't expected him to ever say such a thing. "Wait. What?" she splutters, and a grin spreads over his face that's so cocky she wants to slap him.

"Stefan was right! He said you'd totally go for it."

Elena frowns. "I don't believe I answered in the affirmative."

"No need," he says, tugging Grace close to his chest and dipping his face down to press kisses to the dark hair on the crown of her head. "I can tell you want it."

"This is not the way you propose, Damon. It's supposed to be romantic."

"Well, technically, it shoulda come before the baby, too, but since we already blew that all to hell, I say what does it matter?" He straightens up and looks her full in the face, drawing his eyes away from the baby in his arms. "Seriously. You wanna marry me?"

Elena shrugs and turns away from him, sliding across the bed to get off of it. "Sure, why not? We'll just do it some afternoon when none of us are busy." She walks towards the bathroom, tosses Grace's soiled diaper in the trash, but doesn't turn around when he calls after her. She switches on the tap and starts running a bath for herself.

He comes in a few minutes later as she's undressing and adding bath salts to the rising water. "I _am_ serious, Elena," he says, his voice now carrying the deliberateness she thought he would have employed for such a moment.

She turns around and looks at him as she drops her shirt and bra on the floor. His eyes follow the lines of her body as if compelled to do so (his preoccupation with her breasts has increased as their voluptuousness-via-breast-milk has continued), and she answers him with a sincerely sarcastic, "So am I. Just plan it for one day next week." She waves her hand airily. "Grace and I have our four-week check-up on Thursday, so that's my only day that's busy."

His gaze focuses on her face as she bends over to remove her pants and underwear. "Elena..." She sees the horror register in his eyes as he contemplates the magnitude of his fuck up.

Reaching for a scrunchie, she drags all her hair up into a messy bun on the top of her head (and his eyes inevitably fall to her chest again). "I'm going to take a bath. Why don't you take Grace and rock her and leave me in peace for a bit?"

She steps into the tub, sinks down until her shoulders are almost completely covered and leans back, resting her head against the lip of the tub. Suddenly one of her favorite classical CDs comes on and she glances over to see Damon balancing the baby in one arm while he adjusts the volume so that it's softly playing in the background.

"It's gonna take a lot more than that, Salvatore!" she calls.

He moves away from the stereo towards the rocking chair in the corner. "I've just realized that. I'll be pondering it while I'm over here in a timeout with my daughter."

He can't help it, she knows; the snark is just inherent in everything that comes out his mouth, but he somehow manages to infuse just the right amount of chagrin into his words too and Elena fights a grin. "I may be an ass, Elena," he says loud enough for her to hear, settling into the chair. "But I do love you, and I want to marry you."

She meets his gaze for just a moment. "Prove it," she states. Then she closes her eyes and lets her tired body relax.

* * *

Over the next several days, his normally deferential treatment of her increases to the point that both Caroline and Stefan comment on it, and when Jeremy, Ric, and Bonnie come over for dinner that night, Ric asks loudly halfway through dinner, "What the hell did you do?"

Damon mutters, "Shut the fuck up," and Elena just looks at Ric with a _whatever do you mean?_ expression.

"He's being too nice," Ric says, pointing at Damon as though none of them know who he means.

“What do you mean?” Bonnie snarks. "Damon's always nice." Damon salutes her with his glass and a slightly raised middle finger.

"Damon _is_ very sweet," Elena says, quite earnestly, waiting a beat while he rolls his eyes. "I think I hear Grace crying; she must be up from her nap. Would you go get her?" she asks.

Damon smirk-grimaces and leaves the table to get his daughter. Elena continues her act of innocence for her dinner guests even though they all look at her expectantly once Damon's exited the room.

She never does say a word about it, and when Damon returns with the baby, everyone forgets about it in the wake of oohing and ahhing over their gorgeous child.

* * *

The day Elena gets home from the check up, she can feel an odd tension in the house. The Boarding House is always a hub of activity, their friends in and out at all times of the day, but it's eerily quiet when she walks in.

The doctor had been pleased with her healing process, telling her that everything looked good to go, but to expect that her first attempt post-pregnancy at intercourse might make her flashback to her first time. (Not that anything with Damon would ever be like that awkward bumbling time with Matt, but Elena got what the doctor meant: pain wise, it might be like being a virgin all over again.) She had just nodded and smiled, not sharing with anyone what she had done to help the healing process along. Caroline had provided a bit of vampire blood, because the truth is, Elena was tired of not being able to have sex. Sure she's exhausted being a new mom, but she and Damon have chemistry, and pretty much every time she breast-fed their daughter, the way he watched the interaction made her pulse race.

It had been weeks, and she needed him.

But after some of Caroline's blood a week earlier, she felt fan-freaking-tastic, and had almost attacked Damon that evening. She only restrained herself because Grace had picked that particular night to be fussy, and then he became so convinced that the baby had colic, he'd been reading stuff online on and off for as long as it took them to get the baby to sleep (four o'clock in the morning; it's a good thing neither of them had jobs). Then they'd both passed out, and the next day three books had arrived via FedEx about colic.

Of course, Grace has not been grumpy since, but that hardly mattered. Sometimes Elena thought they would need to convert one of the unused bedrooms into another, smaller library, one devoted exclusively to baby-related books.

Anyway, as she comes in now, with Grace in her pumpkin seat, to a very still Boarding House, Caroline appears in front of her. "Hand Gracie over. Auntie Care and Uncle Stef are on baby duty while you and Damon have a romantic evening."

Though she knows she’d really enjoy that, she also doesn’t let go when Caroline tries to snag the car seat from her grasp. “Wait, what? I can’t just let you take my baby…” She looks down to see her daughter sleeping peacefully, but the idea of not being nearby when she wakes is not something she thinks she's ready for.

“We’ll be out back in the carriage house,” Caroline promises, tugging gently. “Not far at all if the baby needs her mom.” When Elena still won't let go, Caroline gives her a stern look. "Do you really think Damon would let me take your child without a plan? He's got his phone and if there's anything amiss, I will call. Elena, I promise. We're going to be like fifty feet away."

Reluctantly, Elena lets go of the handle and Caroline moves vampire-speedily towards the door. She stops abruptly to say, "I pulled the extra breast milk from the fridge. We'll be back in a few hours. Enjoy yourself!"

The last sentence is by definition a total command, but Elena thinks she knows what's going on now. And, just as suddenly, she wishes she hadn't made such a big deal out of it. Everything in their relationship has been a bit dramatic, and this could have been the one thing that was just simple, that they just decided together. She didn't have to make him beg for it.

She runs up the stairs to their bedroom, intent on interrupting whatever speech he has prepared with an excited _hell yes, I'll marry you, Damon Salvatore!_ but as she skids through the doorway, she loses her breath.

The bed, so ginormous to begin with, is freshly made with white linens, but also ensconced in wispy white curtains that hang from newly erected bed posts. There is candlelight throughout the room, soft music playing, and a bottle of champagne sits on the bureau in an ice bucket. There are strawberries, cheese, and an assortment of other snack items, but the most important part is Damon standing there with his smirkiest smirk on trying to cover up the worry in his eyes that she won't like it.

(Which is ridiculous, because who wouldn't like this?)

She just shakes her head and says, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made you do this." She crosses the threshold and quickly runs over to hug him. "Don't ask me, Damon. You know I want to marry you, and I should have just said so when you brought it up."

He cups her face in his hands and smiles, the concern evaporating from his gaze. "I have long had this fantasy, so it really is my pleasure." He kisses her lips gently and then draws her into his arms. "You okay with Gracie being across the lawn?" She nods and then he plants one hand at the small of her back and spins her around the room.

"What are you doing?" she asks, her hands gripping his upper arms to balance herself.

"I'm dancing with my betrothed," he says; his voice is low and charged and immediately her body begins to flush. "Did the doctor give you good news?" he asks. His lips tease along her hairline and cheekbone as he easily moves them around in a small figure eight.

She nods and then moans when his tongue draws a line down the edge of her jaw and his mouth slips below it to her pulse point. He sucks her skin up against his teeth, something he's fond of doing because he won't actually bite her.

Against her throat he whispers, "I love you, Elena. And I'm amazed by you, and enthralled by you, and _completely_ whipped by you, and I don't even care. Please tell me again that you want to marry me."

Elena shoves her hands into his hair to pull his mouth from her neck. "I want to marry you," she murmurs and then their lips touch and the rest of it becomes a blur of heat; tongue, teeth, breath all intermingling; whimpers and sighs and groans that leave nothing to the imagination as to how much they enjoy each other.

Shortly, when they're naked and on the bed, his mouth finds that spot on her neck again and she knows he's leaving a bruise without taking what he really wants. She slides her hands down his back and hooks her legs around his, pulling him in tight to her so that as he presses himself against her, she's drawing him in anxiously at the same time. When he bottoms out inside, she gasps and he mutters, "Yeah, baby," into her neck and Elena threads one hand into the hair at the base of his skull.

"Bite me," she says, both demanding and cajoling with the press of her fingers against the back of his head. She arches her neck under his lips purposefully. "Please, Damon, I want you to."

He still hesitates and it feels like the longest fifteen seconds of her life. A montage of memories blaze across her mind; so many moments they've shared in their short history, but each one more significant than the one preceding it. This is it; this is the last barrier between them. She feels his fangs as they elongate and he growls savagely, and the thrill of it is almost enough to send her over the edge; but then, then his teeth sink into her and he drinks, and she convulses around him, moaning his name as the moment stretches out timelessly.

Suddenly, his hips lose their steady rhythm, becoming furiously uncontrollable until she feels him come undone. It doesn't hurt at all, anywhere, and when he finishes, he slumps against her, breathing hard. He manages to press a gentle kiss to the wound at her throat.

He moves to lie beside her and Elena realizes she's crying at the same moment he does. Instantly his eyes widen in panic and he jams his hand under her chin to examine the place he bit her. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine," she says, batting his hand away. "I'm _fine_. I just—I've wanted this for a long time, for you to be _you_ , completely, with me. Now, I don't just want to get married, I feel like it's _right_ for us to get married."

His response is to kiss her mouth wildly as though he wants to just pull her on top of him and start it all over again, but when he draws back, his eyes are deeply penetrating. "I have only ever been myself with you, because before you were here, I was incomplete."

Elena kisses him then, softly, and snuggles into him, loving him more with each passing breath. When they're lying face to face on one of the large pillows, she touches his face gently and asks, "Would you like to have more kids?"

He's momentarily speechless, but she sees the answer in his eyes. "I love Gracie so much, Elena. So much. If she's all we ever have, it will be enough."

"But..."

"But nothing," he says soberly.

"What about a little boy? You want one, don't you?"

"We could try again and end up with another girl, and I would love her just as much."

"Damon!"

"Okay, fine. I'm being too politically correct! Yes, I'd like a boy. But I wouldn't love him anymore than I love our daughter."

She nods. "I know that, goofball. So, we'll have more kids, in a couple years, or so?"

"Do you want to?" he asks.

"Yes," she states emphatically. "I keep imagining a little boy called Grayson with your eyes, and possibly your smirk as well." He smirks and it makes her laugh. She keeps stroking his cheek as she states, "And after that, I want to become a vampire."

He grows still, the way he always does when he hears something he doesn't agree with; she can see it in his eyes, watches the struggle across his face, but he chokes the words back—whatever negative thing he wants to say doesn't come out. Instead, he says in a very controlled manner, "Stefan mentioned that, too."

Now Elena smirks. "If I'd known you two were so close now that you traded state secrets, I might have kept my plans to myself."

"He says with us and Caroline around to help, your transition would be much easier. But—"

Elena puts her finger to his lips. "But nothing. There was a time when you wanted me to become a vampire, remember?"

He snags her hand in his and laces their fingers. "I never wanted you to be a vampire, I just didn't want you to be _dead_. There's a big difference, Elena."

"Do you want to be with me, forever?"

"Elena—"

"Do you, Damon? Do you want to be with me, always?"

Frustrated, he clenches his jaw and then lets the words spill out, "Of course, I do."

"That's what I want, too." She squeezes her fingers around his tightly. "I want to be with you forever; and to do that, I have to live forever."

He blinks, and she knows he's remembering that night, their first together as "friends" in Georgia, the first time she saved his life. But she takes it a step further, making it so much about what has passed between just the two of them, when she says, "I will always choose you, Damon. This is _me_ choosing _you_."

He leans into her and kisses her mouth gently, then he releases a pent-up breath against her chin. He presses his forehead to hers, and closes his eyes. "There was this one time, when I compelled you," he begins, his voice softer than she's ever heard it. "The night we got you back from Rose and Elijah, and you got your vervain necklace back?" He doesn't pause for her to respond. "I told you I loved you, and then I made you forget it."

"Why?" she asks.

"Because I never thought this could happen; even if you could forgive me for all the shit I pulled, you could never love me, not the way I love you. But I thought if I told you, one time, I could just let it go... I was wrong, though. Saying it out loud made it grow, like a wildfire, until it consumed me, until the only way I could ever have peace was if I knew you were happy, and safe, and had whatever you wanted and needed."

She smiles even as tears spring to her eyes, feeling overcome with emotion. "You are what I want and need."

He gives a watery half-laugh. "I know! Isn't that the craziest thing, like, ever?"

Elena just kisses him again because he's right.

It's the unlikeliest of stories, but it's the one she'll tell her children when they are old enough to decide for themselves which kind of life they want to have.

* * *

Elena Gilbert Salvatore is twenty-three the day she gives birth to her third child, a son, John Grayson Salvatore. Her second daughter, Summer Rose had been born two years previously, named after Jenna, whose middle name had also been Rose. She's the only one they call by her full name; Damon says it's very southern of them to do so.

She waits until Gray is almost two years old, which makes her twenty-five (and one year older than Damon, technically speaking), and then she and Damon go away for the weekend. Stefan and Caroline accompany them to make sure everything goes smoothly while Alaric stays with the kids.

She transitions without any accidental murders; after all she knows what to expect. The frown that settles between her husband's brows doesn't ease during those days at the lake house, but eventually, when they venture out into public places and Elena is able to keep a lid on it, they decide it's okay to go home.

She is both a vampire and a mother—a concept never before dreamt of, and something that would probably curdle the blood of any of her ancestors. Damon relaxes when their little girls run into their mother's arms and she has no desire to bite them whatsoever.

Later he gives her his theory: "It's the doppelganger thing; I bet you're like the most chill vampire ever because of the _other_ supernatural being that you are."

"Maybe," she says with a shrug. It ceased to matter a long time ago what exactly caused any of it.

Her children carry the names of the people she and Damon have most loved, but they also tell a story on their own. Gray is the place Elena had to come to, to accept what was in her heart. She left black and white behind her when she met Stefan Salvatore and his brother. Summer is the time when she fell completely in love with the man she wants to wake up to every day for the rest of forever, and Grace is what saved both of them when any number of things (his fears, her determination to make him accept the obvious) might have driven them apart.

She writes that in her journal, saving it for the day when she gets to teach them about their history.


End file.
